Voices In My Head
by Scorpio71
Summary: The “Key” is eternal – Dawn Summers is not. When Dawn is killed, she realizes that the Key is bound to her soul, not her body. So when the Key searches for a new host it drags Dawn along with it – directly into Xander’s head.
1. Prologue: The Summons Home

TITLE: Voices In My Head

AUTHOR: BtVS/Highlander/The Sentinel/TCoR

CHARACTERS: Xander-Dawn centric (non-shippy, er…mostly)

RATING: R-Mature (for violence) – individual chapters vary

DISCLAIMER: All things Buffy are owned by J. Whedon, all things Sentinel are owned by Petfly Productions, all things Highlander are owned by Davis-Panzer Productions, & all things Riddick are owned by Universal Studios.

WARNING: Major character death!!! (sorta)

CATEGORY: AU, Futurefic – Roughly 5 years post "Chosen", Action/Adventure, some strange shippiness for Dawn.

SUMMARY: The "Key" is eternal – Dawn Summers is not. When Dawn is killed, she realized that the Key is bound to her soul, not her body. So when the Key searches for a new host it drags Dawn along with it – directly into Xander's head.

* * *

VOICES IN MY HEAD

Prologue – The Summons Home

* * *

Dropping his carryon bag next to the faded blue chair in the airport waiting lounge, Xander resisted the urge to sigh in irritation. Instead, he merely sat down and sipped at his coffee in the hopes that it would keep him alert and awake so that he didn't miss his flight. Not that he'd ever slept through an overhead announcement that his flight was now boarding and then been forced to exchange his ticket for a later flight once he'd woken up in the empty waiting lounge. No. Not him. Okay, fine. But at least he hadn't done it more than once and not anytime recently. 

Another sip of coffee and he banished the thoughts of past humiliations and pondered future ones. Grunting, Xander reached down and pulled the print-out of his latest email from Phineas Pryce, the sole surviving member of the Windham-Pryce family, from the side pocket of his carryon. Unfolding it, Xander read it once more to be certain that he wasn't becoming overly paranoid.

_To: Watcher Alexander Harris, Field Agent - Specialist Status; Slayer Division_

_It is my hope that this missive finds you in good health and with no pending emergencies on the horizon. _

_As you are aware, unlike most Immortals who remain in total ignorance of any branch of the Watchers Council, you have been given leave to have your own Watcher work closely with you due to the fact that your work in the Slayers branch of the Watchers Council can often prove vital to the safety of hundreds, if not thousands of innocent lives. The fact that you routinely press a Watcher from the Immortal branch of the Council to help with research into the supernatural has, many times, been overlooked. We freely acknowledge that the fate of the world is more important than minor Council policy._

_The fact that Watcher Reginald Trenton fled back to Paris Headquarters after the battle at Bahawalpur and demanded immediate reassignment is not being held against you in any way. The thwarting of a demonic clan's bid for power in the middle of a civil-war torn nation is not something that just anyone can accept as merely another day at the office._

_The fact that Watcher Trenton is not the first to do so is also not being held against you. The Watchers of the Immortal branch of the Council are, more often than not, merely historians and researchers. The Watchers of the Slayer branch are warriors and fighters as well as researchers._

_Despite Trenton's lack of intestinal fortitude, many here have taken his reports to heart and worry about you and your emotional state. You have been on the front lines of this war against the darkness for many years; seven on the Sunnydale Hellmouth, three traveling through Africa and the Middle East in search of activated Slayers, and the past two you've taken assignment after assignment in which various Slayer-teams have called for backup and extra help. Not to put too fine a point on it, Watcher Trenton has described you as being paranoid, trigger-happy, overly protective of the various Slayers you have worked with, and quite possibly insane._

_Unfortunately, your growing reputation within the ranks of both branches of the Council has left us without anyone willing to act as your Watcher. That's not entirely true; perhaps I should say that there isn't anyone willing who is fully trained. As you are aware, Adam Pierson was formally a Watcher-researcher with the Immortal branch of the Council and has transferred over to the Slayer branch due to the fact that he became an Immortal himself. His current assistant, one Dawn Summers, has volunteered to become your Watcher._

_Since Miss Summers has not yet completed her training course to become an active Watcher within the Immortal branch, you are hereby recalled to London Headquarters where it is felt that you can enjoy a dearly earned and much needed rest from your duties._

_I look forward to seeing you once you return to London._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Watcher Phineas Pryce, Middle Eastern Slayer Teams Coordinator_

Xander snorted. Phineas Pryce was an overeducated pinhead who used big words and rarely ever set foot outside of his posh little world of comfy office and luxury ancestral home.He was a lot like Wes had been when he'd first arrived in the 'dale. Unlike Wes, he'd never gone face-to-face with evil and had the pompous knocked out of him. Still, despite all of the big words and long-winded speeches, Phin wasn't so bad. Most of the surviving members of the old Slayers branch of the Watchers Council had lost their overweening arrogance after the First had gone on its murderous rampage targeting the potentials and the Watchers.

Reading between the lines of Phin's email was a story all its own. Xander wasn't in trouble for scaring off another Watcher. No one was mad at him. They were worried about him instead. They thought he was losing it and was on the edge of burnout or something. They wanted him somewhere safe and calm so that they could coddle him and help him meditate on his navel or some such stupidity.

That's why they were giving him Dawn as his new Watcher. Not that Dawn couldn't take care of herself if all hell broke loose, because she could. It's just that Buffy wouldn't let him take any assignments that seemed too dangerous if he was going to be dragging her little sister behind him. It was sneaky, underhanded and manipulative. It was pure Buffy and Willow.

The only problem was; Xander didn't think he was crazy or even headed that way. At least, not any more than normal. He hadn't suddenly cracked and started talking into his shoe like Maxwell Smart or anything. He was the same as he always was, a little older and a little wiser, sure. That was expected.

Okay, so the Immortal thing changed him a bit, but to be honest, he wasn't even sure when it happened. Oh, he knew when he figured it out, but he was sure that his immortality had kicked in long before he had actually realized it. Thinking back, he figured that his first death had been when he'd been hit by the Troll Hammer. Most mortals didn't survive that kind of thing, but he had. At the time, he hadn't wondered why, he'd just been grateful.

While he'd never admit it to Willow, Kingmans Bluff had changed him too. Things that had lain dormant inside of him had woken up from the blasts of pure dark magic that Willow had slammed him with. Memories and nightmares that he'd firmly laid to rest were suddenly clamoring for attention inside his head after that. He probably should have said something then, but there had been so many other things that were much more important and immediate going on that he'd held his tongue. Afterwards when things calmed down again, he'd pretty much had it all under control and it wasn't worth putting Willow through anymore grief and guilt.

Losing his eye, burying Sunnydale inside of the collapsing Hellmouth, his self-imposed exile from the Scoobies, roving through third-world nations in his search for Slayers despite language barriers, various civil wars, rampant diseases and centuries long demonic clan wars had also changed him. He was not the same sarcastic, wisecracking, donut fetching Zeppo that he once was.

He was Xander Harris, the Hellborn Immortal.

He had a reputation for being ruthless and deadly. He was fearless in the face of evil, careless with his own life and yet insanely protective of the lives of others. His fondness for explosives was worrying and his ability to mouth off to anyone under the sun well practiced. Demons and Immortals alike trembled at his name.

Xander snorted again and then finished off the last of his quickly cooling coffee. Who was he kidding? He might have a bit of a reputation in certain circles, but it wasn't that big or that bad. And when faced with the Scoobies, his reputation meant bupkis.

His relationship with Buffy had cooled off dramatically after Sunnydale and now they danced around each other very carefully as if their friendship was made of glass and would shatter at one harsh word. They didn't see each other very often, but they were slowly making their way back to good. It would never be the same as it was, but that was okay. Neither he nor Buffy were the same people they had been, and that was a good thing.

Giles, well, that was a strange thing that he didn't often look at too closely. When they'd been younger back in the 'dale, Giles had been a sort of mentor or father figure to all of them. At the time, Xander had felt that out of all the Scoobies, he'd ended up as the disappointment. The failure. It was different now. Giles, as the head of the Slayers branch of the Council was still the boss, but they were both adults instead of adult and child. What's more, Giles sent Xander on assignments that he wouldn't trust to anyone else on the planet. Not even Buffy or Willow. Which was good since Xander would kill Giles himself if he ever found out that he'd sent either girl out on an assassination mission.

No, what Giles and he shared now was nothing like the innocent student-mentor relationship that they had once had. Premeditated murder does that to people.

Then there was Willow. He loved and adored his Willow-girl. He probably always would. Even if she still thought of him as the same goofy kid that had periodically hidden from his parents drunken brawls and flunked out of math and French class. Twice. He wasn't that kid anymore and he didn't need nor want her to try and 'fix' him or 'take care' of him.

Still, they didn't often cross paths, so her need to mother him never got too bad. And he knew that it was her lingering guilt over the whole Kingmans Bluff thing that blinded her to the fact that he had grown up. It didn't help that while she and Buffy looked their ages that he still looked like he was in his late teens or early twenties. Still, he loved her madly and wanted her to be happy.

Dawn. He was completely confused about what to feel about Dawn. When she was a kid she had a huge crush on him and followed him around with those huge puppy eyes. He had been flattered beyond belief and had given her lots of attention and encouragement. Of course, it hadn't been anything shippy. She was a kid. At the time. The last time he had seen her she had been totally grown up and drop-dead gorgeous to boot. Her childhood crush on him might have been completely gone by then, but he'd developed one instead. He'd had to constantly remind himself that she was Buffy's younger sister and totally off limits.

Now she was going to be his Watcher and follow him around the globe as he went from assignment to assignment.

**Now boarding flight 347 to London England at Gate G7**

Xander was pulled out of his swirling thoughts at the overhead announcement. It took him a moment to translate the words from Punjabi and into English. Then he was tucking away the email printout and throwing his empty coffee cup into the trash. Picking up his carryon, Xander pulled his ticket out and headed toward the Gate.

He was going home. Home to the Scoobies. Who knew what crazy hijinks would ensue.


	2. Chapter 1: The Eternal Key

**VOICES IN MY HEAD**

_Chapter 1 – The Eternal Key_

* * *

She was beautiful. Her face could make a runway supermodel jealous and her tall curvy figure could make a playboy centerfold feel boyish and frumpy. Her hair, makeup and clothes hit that combination of lush beauty and refined dignity that would have made Cordelia proud. She stood out like a shining beacon in the drab and gray airport waiting lounge, her lovely face set in a slight pout as she scanned the room.

Xander stood back a moment just watching her and trying to beat some sense into his suddenly awake libido. Dawn Summers on the cusp of fourteen had been both adorably cute and delightfully bratty. He had enjoyed babysitting her. Dawn Summers on the cusp of twenty-four was a walking, talking dream come true.

One whose overprotective big sister was the strongest human on the planet. Said big sister also happened to beat-up or scare off every suitor Dawn had ever brought home.

Okay, maybe she was a nightmare in disguise.

Especially since he had gone from the status of adored crush, to big brother, to friend-I-knew-back-when in her eyes. She wanted to be his official Watcher, to chronicle his adventures as he went about the planet from mini-apocalypse to mini-apocalypse. She was; he had to admit, practically perfect for the job. She knew a multitude of languages, not all of them human, she was familiar with magic and Slayers and demons of all kinds. She wasn't afraid of him or his job. He also knew that even if she wouldn't admit it, she was looking to get out from under the thumb of Buffy and be her own woman. What she didn't want or need was a beat-up, burned out and paranoid head-case to be lusting after her.

Xander sighed. This wasn't going to be easy.

Plastering a slightly resigned smile on his face, Xander hitched his carryon bag higher up on his shoulder and began to make his way through the milling crowd. He could tell exactly when she noticed him, because her eyes lit up and her lips stretched into a wide and joy filled smile. It was like watching the sun come up.

"Xander!"

He only had a brief moment to gaze in wonder at her and then she was running across the lounge and flinging herself into his wide open arms. He pulled her in tight to him, one hand buried in the soft shimmery length of her hair, the other pressed flat against her back. She was warm and soft and smelled oh so good, like vanilla and flowers after a rain. He felt like a dirty old man for enjoying the way her lush curves pressed against his body and had to resist the urge to take her mouth in a fierce kiss.

Instead he just gave her an extra tight squeeze before letting her go and smiling back at her. He took in her beauty and sheer happiness and let all of his memories of war torn nations and their plagues of starving refugees and rampant diseases fade away with the rest of the dingy airport lounge.

"Gods above and below, Dawn-patrol. You look," he fingered a lock of her hair gently, "amazing."

She grinned and blushed slightly, her eyes sparkling.

"Thanks. So do you." Her gaze turned mildly speculative. "A little tired maybe. And hey," she gestured to his hair, "the cornrows are new."

He chuckled and made a vague gesture towards the exit. She smiled and turned around. He stuck out the elbow closest to her and she wrapped her hand around it and led him through the crowd.

"The cornrows are the brainchild of Kareema," Xander cut his eye to the side to watch Dawn's expressive face; "she's a lovely Slayer from Morocco. I was sent there to help out during an uprising of a clan of Faryal demons."

He didn't tell her that the real reason he had been sent was because one of the Slayers there had been having extreme personal difficulties with an abusive soon-to-be husband. He'd buried the corpse of several intolerant or fanatical male relatives of slayers over the years; one more hadn't made any difference to him.

Dawn nodded her head seriously.

"And this led to cornrows, how?"

Xander chuckled and followed her over to the baggage claim area and began to scout out a cart or some such thing. He wasn't looking forward to hauling around all his luggage and weaponry by hand if he didn't have to.

"Oh, that's simple enough really. Kareema was grabbed by one of the demons. He used her long hair as a handhold. She couldn't get away without ripping a big chuck of her own hair out by the scalp or until the Faryal was dead." He shrugged. "After that, she insisted that everyone either shave their hair off or have it braided down tight against their skull."

Dawn pursed her lips and watched him silently as he wandered over to the far wall and rented a small hand cart. When he returned she had a strange gleam in her eyes.

"Xander… you were in Morocco several months ago. Why the braids still?"

He gazed out into the middle distance and shrugged. "Habit, I suppose." He shook his head to rattle the memories of that time loose and smirked at her. "It doesn't look that bad."

She chuckled and watched as he began to scoop up his luggage one piece at a time and put it on the hand cart.

"Doesn't look bad at all, just…different." She sighed slightly and made a vague gesture in the air. "It makes me think of L.A., actually. It's not a style we saw in the 'dale and it's not something you see here in London. But in L.A. half the people in the streets wore their hair in cornrows, so…" she grinned and shrugged, "exotic for London and a little taste of childhood for me."

He chuckled softly but looked away. He didn't need to have visions in his head of a young pre-teen Dawn riding through L.A. in the back of Joyce's car and bouncing in excitement as she spotted a famous rapper sitting at an outside table at some exclusive club or café. Visions of pre-teen Dawn just messed with his head thanks to the semi hard on he was sporting in her presence. Because of her presence.

To quote Spike, he was a bad rude man. And he was pretty sure that he was going to burn in hell some day because of it.

Finally all of his things had been collected. At least, the stuff that he had brought with him. The majority of his books and weapons had been shipped separately. What he had with him was a mere pittance, but airline security being what it was, it was amazing that he was even able to bring as much as he did. Still, it was all packaged away in boxes and bags and that didn't sit well with him. He wanted to get to wherever they were going and maybe get some sleep. Oh, and food.

He turned towards Dawn and smiled at her. She flashed back a beaming beautiful smile.

"So, where to?"

She waved him towards the east exit and began walking in that direction. He swiveled the hand cart around and followed.

"I'm parked in short-term parking lot C. We'll get the car and I'll take you to one of the Council owned flats on the west side. It's small, but clean and secure."

They walked through the automatic doors and she gestured down the walkway to the left and then pointed to a small three level parking garage diagonally across the small taxi port.

"The power and water have been turned on and I stocked up on some groceries for you." She grinned and nudged him with an elbow, "But I figure that for tonight you'd probably just want a shower, some take out and then some sleep."

He snorted in amusement and nodded.

"Yeah. Pretty much." He elbowed her back gently. "Thanks Dawn."

They reached the crosswalk and started across the narrow street once the thicket of circling taxis slowed down enough to let them cross. Dawn's hand on his arm squeezed gently once in acknowledgement and she flashed him a quick grin.

"I know that everyone has been making 'you need a rest' type noises at you and Willow is convinced that you are on the edge of burnout and so she's been baking cookies like mad. Giles gets this dark and guilty look every time your name is mentioned and Buffy is convinced that pairing you off with me will force you into semi-retirement or something."

Xander winced. Phin's email had hinted at just that, but Dawn was blunt as always. She had learned to call 'em like she saw 'em from Anya.

"Uh, Dawn." Xander cleared his throat and gave her a pointed look. "While I'm not saying that a vacation isn't a good thing. Needed, even. 'Cause I am really looking forward to a bit of down time, but I'm not ready for retirement. Not even semi-retirement."

He stopped at the door to the parking garage and gave her a steady look.

"Buffy and Willow haven't been out in the field for years. I know that they still patrol around London or whatever city they happen to be in, but they spend most of their time either training others or doing research." He shrugged again, but he looked over her shoulder and gazed into the middle distance seeing something that was more memory and thought then substance. "That's great and wonderful and very needed, but I'm not ready for that yet."

His eye swung to meet hers, hoping to impress his seriousness on her.

"I can't be. I need to keep my fighting edge sharp or I'm going to be killed. I don't have centuries of experience and The Game will catch up to me if I don't keep my skills up."

She frowned at him as if she wanted to argue, but couldn't.

"If you really want to be my Watcher, that's fine. Just know that I am going to drag you to some of the most hellish spots on earth and get you embroiled in deadly combat against demons and vampires and evil Immortals." He tried to grin at her and knew that it didn't come across as reassuring in the least. "It's not just what I do, Dawn. It's who I am."

She looked at him, searchingly, for a long moment. Then she nodded once and gave a small wry smile.

"I know."

Then she turned back to the parking garage and tugged lightly on his arm.

"Come on. Let's get you to the Council flat and get you fed."

They walked into the building and headed towards the banks of elevators at the end of the row. Their footsteps echoed hollowly off of the cement and the dim florescent lighting flickered and hummed overhead. Xander let his eye scan the cavernous ground level of the parking garage and noted all of the deep shadows and stark glares of light. Lots of little nooks and crannies for the baddies to hide in. He suddenly felt painfully naked and his eye flicked over to the sealed box with his personal weaponry packed away inside.

Once at the elevator, Dawn pressed the up button and it didn't take more than a few seconds for the doors to bing and open. They shuffled inside with Xander dragging his hand cart behind him. The doors shut and Dawn pressed the button for level three.

"I guess I should warn you that while almost everyone is going to treat this as a vacation for you, Adam has other plans."

"Oh?" One of Xander's eyebrows rose up.

Adam Pierson was an enigma. He was Dawn's direct supervisor, yes, but he had come to the Slayer branch of the Watchers Council from the Immortal branch. Apparently, he had been a researcher working on a very old chronicle when he had been killed. Surprisingly, he had woken up as an Immortal.

He had been dismissed from his position immediately, of course. The Council couldn't have an Immortal for a Watcher because it messed with their non-interference policy. At least, as far as The Game went. Adam wasn't stupid however and he sought out a fairly famous and highly regarded Immortal as a teacher.

At that point, he traveled around a bit. He did some work doing translations and taught a few classes at one or two universities. Mostly, he trained and traveled at loose ends. It was a commonly held opinion that Adam had been so shocked by becoming Immortal that he had lost focus and direction in his life.

It was at that point that the First declared its war against the Slayers and the Council. Fortunately, it only targeted the Slayers branch and left the Immortal branch alone. In the aftermath of the First, Sunnydale imploding and the activation of all the potentials, Giles wrested control of the Slayers branch of the Council from the hands of the other survivors. When it became painfully clear that there were too many Slayers and not nearly enough Watchers, he put in a call to the Immortal branch. They sent a few of their researchers and called a few field agents out of retirement.

And they had reactivated Adam Pierson and sent him to London.

Unfortunately, Xander didn't buy his story at all. Not that Adam wasn't a damn good researcher nor was he a slouch in the languages department. He came across all mild mannered and easily flustered. Until you looked in his eyes.

Xander had lived his life in a war-zone since the age of fifteen. He knew a fellow survivor when he saw one. There was far more to Adam than he let on.

Yet he was also the closest thing Xander had to a teacher as far as the Immortal stuff went. Xander, unlike most Immortals, hadn't even realized what he was or that he had died at one point until he'd been challenged. The Quickening had been a bit of a shock. Oh, he'd known about Immortals on an intellectual level, but he'd never given it much thought nor had he ever met one.

A single phone call to Giles had been all it took. A day later, Adam was on a plane and heading out to meet him. They had spent several months bouncing around Africa hunting down Slayers and averting demonic and vampiric troubles. In between all of that had been history lessons, sword and axe fighting lessons, lessons in how to hide from mortal police and Immortal headhunters and lessons in how to hide the bodies.

No, Xander didn't buy the mild mannered book-geek act at all.

"Yeah." Dawn rolled her eyes and smirked, dragging Xander back out of his thoughts. "He mentioned something about teaching you how to create a false identity, most likely one with a complete background and enough credibility to stand up to an Interpol investigation."

She snorted in amused exasperation. "Adam loves details."

He mock frowned at her.

"Damn. And here I was hoping for lots of beer and a few rounds of darts."

"That too." Her grin was wry and her eyes danced with humor.

It was only the fact that the elevator doors opened at that moment that kept Xander from leaning over and kissing Dawn then and there. She was just so beautiful and full of life and laughter after all of the pain, darkness and war that he'd seen.

He followed her out of the elevator and partway down the row of parked cars. He was silently musing on how badly Buffy would hurt him if he made his interest in Dawn known. He knew that she wouldn't kill him. Probably. And if she did he was certain that it would be worth it.

A soft scuffing noise and a brief glimpse of a fleeting shadow out of the corner of his eye caught Xander's attention, but when he turned to look, nothing was there. He paused for a moment and tried to stare deeper into the shadows. Dawn stopped as well and peered around him to try and figure out what he was looking at.

"Xander, what?"

Her voice seemed loud in the empty gloom and he answered with a whisper.

"I don't know. Thought I heard something, but…"

Dawn took a deep breath, closed her eyes and chanted softly under her breath. Moments later she stopped and glanced up at him, concern etched on her face.

"I can't sense any magic or demonic energy." A small frown turned her lips down at the corners. "Can you feel an Immortal near by?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't even have to concentrate; it hits me like a club to the back of the head if an Immortal gets too close. I don't feel anything, though."

He stared deeper into the gloom for another minute and then turned to look at Dawn. There was still worry in her face and eyes, but it was different now. It wasn't the concern one had when they were facing a threat. It was concern for him. The words 'paranoid' and 'burnout' flashed through his mind and for the first time he actually wondered if they might be right.

"I'm not crazy."

Her smile was sad, the weight of years and memories in her eyes.

"I never thought that you were."

Still, when he went to turn back and investigate the noise he'd heard, she tugged gently at his arm in the opposite direction.

"Come on. My car is parked just over there. Let's get you home."

He almost argued, but getting some food and rest sounded great. And honestly, he wanted to date Dawn, not have her look at him with a mix of sadness and pity over what a crazy psycho he'd become. In the end he merely cast one last look into the shadows and then nodded and followed her to the car.

Reaching into her pocket, Dawn pulled out her car keys. She pushed a little button on the key-ring and the car's lights flashed, throwing up odd shadows and the alarm beeped twice as it disengaged. Another button and the trunk of the slightly battered BMW swung up.

Something still felt off, but he didn't bring it up. Not when it was fairly obvious that Dawn was worried about his stress levels or something like that. He tried not to remember that he was here in London because he'd manage to terrify his last Watcher into demanding reassignment. He also tried to ignore that sense of something wrong and gave Dawn a slightly forced smile as he began to unload his luggage into her trunk.

She watched him for a moment and then held out her hand for his carryon. His smile melted into something a bit more genuine and he handed it over to her and picked up the next case. She grinned back and turned away towards the drivers' side of the car. He had a brief mental twitch over the steering wheel being on the wrong side and wondered how many times Giles had thought just that back in the 'dale.

"Hey there ducks. Be a pet and hand over your purse and jewelry, yeah?"

The voice was scratchy from too many cigarettes and slightly wobbly with nerves and false bravado. Despite the scratchy abused quality to the voice, Xander was sure the guy was young. Young, scared and probably desperate.

And Dawn was standing between him and the voice.

For a brief second, Xander contemplated sneaking around the car in the other direction and coming up behind the guy. That plan was put to rest shortly though.

"You too, mate. Out from behind the boot. We're all friends here. Just want your dosh." Xander shifted out from behind the car. "And possibly your watch as well."

He was just a kid, sixteen or seventeen years old. He was thin as a rail and wearing dirty clothes. His face was unshaven and he smelled of drugs, alcohol and filth. He had a crazed glint in his eyes and he held a gun in his shaking hands.

And Dawn was still standing between him and the kid.

He tried to slowly inch his way towards her. If he could get close enough he could slip in front of Dawn and use his own body as a shield. The bullets would hurt if the kid shot him, but that was no big deal. They'd kill Dawn. He had survived worse things than a couple of holes blasted through him before and he most likely would survive worse in the future.

"There's a good girl. Toss the loot over."

Xander wished he could mentally tell Dawn to slowly back up and tried to inch a little closer.

"Uh…just stay calm…" Xander nodded his head. Muggings he could do. No problem. As long as Dawn didn't get hurt. Xander shifted slightly, but the kid kept the gun pointed at Dawn instead of turning it towards him like he hoped. "Sure. Hand over your wallet Dawn. I've got mine as well."

She stilled for a minute and he silently hoped that she wouldn't argue. Then she nodded and reached for the zipper of her purse even as Xander slid his wallet out of his pocket.

"Hey! Special Ed."

The jittery mugger glared over at Xander and he held up the wallet. He coiled himself up ready to spring. He figured that he'd throw the wallet with one hand and push Dawn to the ground with the other. While the kid tried to catch the wallet, Xander would tackle him to the ground and try to remember not to kill him.

The best laid plans of mice and men never had to deal with Dawn Summers, however.

As soon as Xander began to toss the wallet, the mugger twisted so that the gun was pointing right at Xander. He noticed that but didn't really care. Before he could push Dawn aside though, she went straight into a panic. With a ringing shout of denial, she leapt in front of him in some heroic and needless effort to save him.

Two shots rang out, the loud retort echoing hollowly off of the concrete.

The blood in Xander's veins turned to ice water as Dawn began to crumple even as her body was flung backwards into him, knocking him off balance. Adrenaline rushed into his system so fast that for a second he felt high. Reacting on instinct, he caught Dawn and pulled her into his arms even as he slid down to the ground with her. A memory in his head was screaming out first aid instructions in a drill sergeant's voice about putting pressure on the wound and CPR.

A different voice was distracting him, however, by yelling in a horrible rasp about 'bloody bints' and 'it's all bullocks now'. He didn't think about it, his head just snapped up and he growled at the kid junkie. It was a sound that was more hyena than human. The kid's face paled and he brought the gun up again. Xander had barely shifted his weight to move Dawn when a flash of light erupted from the barrel. Pain exploded in his chest.

Xander gasped even as his body was pushed back and onto the ground from the force of the bullet. His voice whispered out a breathy, "Fucker shot me," before his vision dimmed and he knew he was dying again.

* * *

Life rushed in with a gasp of breath that filled his lungs and swamped his reviving brain with oxygen. He had no clue where he was or what had been happening, only that his chest had a phantom ache. He groaned and opened his eye.

"Sweet Lord in Heaven."

The prayer that reached his ear was practically shrieked with fear and was accompanied by frantic scrambling away from him. Turning his head to face the noise, Xander saw a dirty thin kid in raggedy clothing crab-walking away and staring at him as if he were the devil himself.

He shot me.

Another memory surfaced and he turned his head to see Dawn's corpse lying in a small puddle of blood, the contents of her purse scattered around her. He turned back to the kid to see that he was frantically trying to find his feet and escape the dead man that just woke up.

Xander smiled at him. It wasn't a nice smile and death simmered in his one dark eye.

Growling in the back of his throat, Xander rolled to his feet and lunged. The kid let out a high pitched squeal and wet his jeans. Xander barely noticed. He was too focused on the feel of his large axe roughened hands gripping either side of the junkie's head. A feral grin grew across his face when the kid began to recite the Lord's Prayer.

"God doesn't live here."

The kid whimpered and Xander twisted his hands with a sharp jerk. The loud cracking sound that reached his ears merged with the sensation of bones giving way beneath his hands. Xander snorted his disgust at the corpse he help up and then tossed the body to the ground in bitter dismissal.

Turning around, he saw Dawn lying there and nearly collapsed under the weight of the pain he felt. He hurried over to her and dropped to his knees. Reaching out one shaking hand, he gently pushed several gleaming strands of hair out of her beautiful face.

"Why? Why did you jump in front of me, sweetie?" He practically sobbed. "I would have lived."

A tear slid out of his good eye and rolled down his cheek. He was almost amazed that he could still cry. He hadn't done so since Anya died, but Dawn was worth it. She was more than worth his tears. Gently, he cupped her face with his hand and damned himself for not being faster, better, smarter. She shouldn't have died. Not now. And not like this.

He wasn't sure how long he kneeled there beside the dead woman he was certain he could have fallen in love with when he noticed an odd tingling beneath the hand on her cheek. Then the little hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and a sense of dread washed up over him that was born from years of terror on the Hellmouth.

Something was coming for him and it was going to hurt like a bitch.

It started with a soft rumble of thunder that was felt more than heard and was followed by the dimming of the overhead florescent lights. A pale green mist seemed to roll in from everywhere and nowhere, obscuring his already poor vision.

Some instinct in his head screamed at him to run, to just get up off of his knees and run until he died from exhaustion because there was no way in hell that he was going to like what happened next. But he couldn't run; he couldn't even stand up. All of his muscles were locked in place and he trembled at the mystical power he could feel building around him.

Dawn began to glow a soft vibrant green. He franticly tried to tell himself it was a trick of the light, but he knew deep down that it wasn't. It was something else entirely. And all the while, the green glow became brighter and brighter. The glow practically vibrated with energy and power as it slowly pulled up out of Dawn and away from her body. It hovered over her and slowly twisted into a big floating ball of pulsing green energy.

It seemed to Xander like the most gentle and peaceful Quickening he'd ever seen. But that couldn't be, because Dawn wasn't an Immortal. He'd never once sensed anything like that about her. And even if she had been Immortal, she still had her head. So he didn't have any idea why she would have a Quickening.

He was so confused and frightened, angry and heartbroken. This was just another strange thing that he didn't want or need, but he'd fight whatever this glowy thing was for Dawn's body. She deserved a proper funeral.

And then he got it. He realized just what it was he was seeing and it terrified him.

Dawn was the Key. The former glowing green ball of inter-dimensional hijinks for Glorificus type Key.

But now Dawn was dead.

And the Key was eternal.

Xander had half a moment to goggle at the royal fuck up that those idiot monks had created in their unthinking panic and then the Key pulsed very bright, bright enough to nearly blind him. He reached up to try and shield his eye, but his hand never made it further than five inches before the Key shot forward and slammed into his forehead.

Pain exploded through his brain and then down his spine. He'd been electrified by heavy power lines and powerful Quickenings. This felt like neither and at the same time a little bit like both. His body slammed up and away from Dawn and into her old BMW hard enough to leave a large dent in the rear quarter panel. He knew on one level that he was twitching and flopping about, but he was mostly concentrating on not screaming his throat raw as the pain tore through him.

Reality began to waver in and out and he tumbled to the concrete in a rush of vertigo. Shaky and twitchy from the slowly receding agony, Xander pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and emptied his stomach. He heaved until there was nothing else to bring up and then collapsed backwards onto his ass and tried to crawl away and back over to Dawn.

His vision wobbled wildly and he trembled as he began to hallucinate strange lights and pulses of energy. Voices began to rumble inside his head and he wasn't exactly sure who he was as strange memories began to play behind his eyes. Finally he crumbled to the ground and twitched violently with sparks of pain and madness.

He wasn't sure how long he stared at the small bit of plastic and metal before he realized what it was. Grunting, he reached out and grabbed Dawn's cell phone and flipped it open. He trembled and his vision kept wavering in and out, but he stubbornly rode the waves of vertigo and unreality until he could pull up the address book.

Giles.

He pressed the send button and lifted the phone to his ear and prayed.

"This is Rupert Giles."

Xander almost sobbed with relief.

"Giles." His voice was a harsh and shaky whisper.

"Xander? Is that you, my boy?" Giles' voice had gone from coldly business-like to warm in an instant. "Didn't Dawn arrive at the airport to greet you?"

"Giles. Hurry. Attacked. Dawn's dead. The Key, Giles. The Key."

There was a horrifying silence as Xander spoke words he would gleefully commit murder to take back.

"Airport. Garage C. Third level."

"Dear Lord. Dawn…." Giles' voice hitched painfully on the last word.

"Hurry, G-man."

Then the darkness of oblivion rose up in him and swallowed him whole. He knew nothing more and so he didn't hear his one-time mentor shouting his name into the phone.


	3. Chapter 2: Mindscape

**VOICES IN MY HEAD**

_Chapter 2 – Mindscape_

* * *

Dawn heard the gunshot and felt the fiery pain blossom inside of her chest like a poisonous flower. Her strength melted away even as the pain grew and she was falling, the world swirling madly around her. Then Xander was there, holding her tightly against him. The heat of his body soaking into her back was a dramatic contrast to the cold darkness she could feel rushing up from her toes. Their gazes locked onto one another's and she saw pain, sorrow, loss and even love in his face.

She faded away softly in his arms.

Only to fade back into existence once again. Slowly at first, she became aware of a soft green light that grew brighter with each passing moment. There was no pain anymore, but she could feel her body drifting with weightlessness in a warm void. Time had no meaning and there was no panic, no fear. Simply a gentle peaceful certainty that she was loved.

Dawn knew that she had been killed and was now dead, but that fact didn't bother her. She didn't worry about being resurrected and shoved back into her body as Buffy had been. Uncaring of why she was so certain that she was exactly where she was supposed to be, Dawn opened her eyes and looked around.

Unfortunately, she had no idea where she was.

She had always assumed that unless her death came about due to some demon sacrificing her to hell that she would end up in Heaven with her mother. Arrogant perhaps, but that was what she had believed. And unless the standards had dropped dramatically since Buffy's brief never-to-be-mentioned visit, this place was not Heaven.

A tiny spark of anger swirled in her mind alongside of the thought that she was being royally ripped off, but neither that stray thought or the emotion it engendered could compete with the almost overwhelming sense that this was right. Or, almost right.

It was right that she should be here, of that much she was certain despite her dreams of one day reaching Heaven. The problem was she was also equally sure that there was something off about this place. Wherever this place was.

A sense of restlessness began to intrude on the feeling of peace that she had woken with and Dawn closed her eyes to consider it better. When she stilled and focused inside of herself she noticed two things, both disturbing in their own way.

The first was that she wasn't breathing and that her heart did not beat. While that was consistent with what she knew about death, that didn't make it any less spooky to apply it to herself. It was enough to send a little thrill of panic to dance about with that tiny bit of anger she'd felt earlier.

The second thing she noticed was that there was a slight tugging sensation centered in the middle of her torso. The tug seemed to be urging her to follow it slightly right of forward. She didn't know what was over in that direction, but she did know that she needed to find out. Whatever it was, it was calling her.

Opening her eyes again, she turned her head in the direction of the summons and sighed. It was a breathy sound that was more mental than physical. Wondering how long it would take to get used to that, she reached up to push some strands of hair away from her face. Coming to an instant stillness the way only the dead can, Dawn stared at her hand and waited for the panic that she thought she should be feeling to rush over her and drown her in mindless fear. It never came.

Instead, she almost felt that the fact that her body was now a deep rich shade of glowing green was right. The color was actually familiar to her although she didn't know why.

Was it because she was the Key? Was this her inner Key-ness showing at last?

That was a question for another time. As fascinating as it was, the need to travel northeast was growing. It wasn't painful in any way, just increasingly urgent. Hoping that she would find answers instead of more questions, Dawn began to walk.

Taking the chance to really look around her for the first time, Dawn truly wondered where she was. The rolling grassy plains and wide open night sky reminded her of something out of National Geographic. The tall grass dotted by the occasional lone tree, the whispering wind and the glint of starlight off of some small pond or lake in the distance would have made her feel small and insignificant when she was still alive. Now, any sense of awe she held was tempered by the knowledge that she was safe from any danger.

She wasn't really certain how long she walked through what increasingly reminded her of the African Savannah. It was still night, but time seemed to be oddly distorted although she couldn't really say why.

Eventually, she passed a sleeping hyena curled up in a bed of tall grass. Its paws twitched on the end of long legs and whining chuffs of breath puffed its cheeks out as it hunted prey in its sleep.

Still, she walked on.

Dawn began to fear that she would never get to where she was going because the wilderness around her seemed to go on forever to the horizon, but then suddenly between one step and the next it was gone. Instead of dirt beneath her feet and long grasses tangling her legs, Dawn was suddenly standing on an asphalt road. Startled, she looked behind her and saw that the road extended out into the distance, no sign of the Savannah or its sleeping predators in sight.

Dawn was confused more than anything. It hadn't felt as if she'd teleported, nor traveled in any way that she had done before, magical or mundane. And yet here she was in a completely different place than she was only seconds ago. Oh, she was still reminded of Earth, what with the paved road with its painted lines only now she was certain that she was no where near the African Savannah.

If anything, this place made her think of the American desert in Nevada. Hard packed dirt, rocks, some scrub and shimmering heat waves off in the distance. Which was odd all its own because it was still night and she herself wasn't hot at all.

The gentle tugging sensation was still within her and it was urging her to follow.

Sighing, Dawn continued walking. Thankfully it was a bit easier going along the abandoned highway than it had been through the wilderness, so she seemed to make better time. She couldn't be sure though since she still had the feeling that time itself was being warped in this strange place.

After a while it occurred to Dawn that she wasn't getting tired. Her feet didn't hurt, nor did her legs. She wasn't suffering from hunger or thirst or a lack of sleep. Boredom seemed to be the biggest threat. Not that she was complaining. Dawn had learned early in life that boredom was a good thing since it meant a lack of demons trying to eat your liver or something equally gross.

Her acceptance of boredom as a lovely substitute for danger and pain aside, Dawn couldn't put aside the mild sense of wrongness that she'd noticed when she had first arrived in this strange place. This place shouldn't be boring at all. She had no clue how she knew that, but that didn't stop it from being true.

That was another thing that was odd. Her just knowing things and accepting them as truth. Dawn was well aware that she was smart. Maybe not Willow smart, but definitely Giles smart. She was good with logic and history. Not too shabby with computers or science. And she was a whiz with languages, human and demon alike.

This sudden knowledge wasn't something she had learned, though. Was it because of her Key-ness? Did death give her access to some mystical Inter-dimensional Key instincts?

Dawn wasn't sure but she still hoped to find the answers soon.

She walked along for a while longer before she noticed it. At first it was nothing more than a speck on the horizon. The speck soon turned into a dark smudge. As she got closer to the smudge, she recognized it as a building, low to the ground and spread out in a rambling sprawl. Closer still, the low dark building shape resolved into a series of several brick or concrete buildings with a long chain-link fence surrounding it. Finally she saw that the road led directly to a guard house and a gate.

The compound was a U.S. military base.

Walking up to the guardhouse she saw that there was a soldier in the small security hut. He was sitting Indian-style on top of the desk, his large gun lying across his knees. Oddly enough, he wasn't dressed the way she thought a perimeter guard would, with a neatly pressed uniform complete with I.D. badges and polished boots. This man was dressed in worn and faded combat fatigues with scuffed boots and a bandana around his head. He was splashed with mud in some places and sported several bruises and scratches. His gun was large, scary and meticulously maintained, but he also carried a hand carved bow across his back and had several cruel looking knives strapped to various limbs. And the expression on his face was completely blank.

"Um, hello?"

The soldier didn't even blink. He just stared into middle space in front of him and breathed in a soft steady rhythm.

"Excuse me."

Dawn leaned into the open window to peer so that she was right in front of the soldier's line of vision. Maybe not the smartest move ever made considering that she was still a faintly glowing green color. It didn't make a difference however; the soldier didn't acknowledge her presence at all.

Not certain if she should be miffed or worried, Dawn put two fingers in her mouth and let loose with a loud piercing whistle. Nothing. It was as if the guy was a living statue.

She might have even believed that he actually was some weird statue or wax dummy type thing if she couldn't see his chest move with each even breath he took. More worried about the soldier than herself, Dawn opened the door to the little guard booth and stepped inside. Reaching out, she gently lifted his dog tags from where they rested against his chest.

ELLISON, JAMES J.

Dawn let the metal tags slip slowly between her fingers and studied the soldier, Ellison, carefully. He was very good looking in a rugged and dangerous sort of way. He was big and broad-shouldered with large heavily muscled arms. He had a day or two of stubble on his chin, but his eyes were the blue of a windswept summer day. Yes, Ellison was definitely handsome.

He was also catatonic, staring into the distance or perhaps into his own mind. Completely unresponsive.

Frowning with regret that she didn't know how to help him, Dawn turned back around and slipped out of the guard house. She looked around at the base that Ellison should have been guarding and hoped that there was someone here that could help him. Normally she wouldn't have even wondered that, but she didn't see anyone else around. The urge to find whatever it was that was trying to summon her battled with the need to help out the catatonic soldier for a moment. She rationalized to herself that it wouldn't hurt to look around a bit, just to see if she could find someone to bring Ellison to the base infirmary.

It didn't take Dawn long to slip past the gate and onto the base proper. The road that led up to it went between two buildings and deeper into the compound. Figuring that following it was the best bet, she continued walking.

Rounding the first building she found herself in a sort of odd courtyard roughly the size of several football fields. The road went around the field in a loop and joined back up to itself. On the far side of the circular road was building after building after building. Dawn was fairly sure that was typical, but the actual buildings themselves gave her pause.

One she recognized right away despite the obvious damage it had taken in some sort of fight. It was Lowell House, the frat that had been the cover story for the secret Initiative base under Sunnydale U. That was crazy of course; the real Lowell House had been left relatively intact after that fiasco. The secret entrance to the labs had been filled with concrete and the frat restored to good condition. She knew this because Xander had been on the work crew. This version of the building was little more than a charred ruin that was falling apart.

Another impossibility was a huge cinder-block bunker that had a metal sign bolted over the door that read 'Sunnydale Armory'. The third building she noted looked like a reproduction of the headquarters for the Slayers branch of the Watchers Council. The sign over the door read 'Command Staff'.

Another building looked distinctly Moroccan in design while another was obviously Egyptian. The grass and mud hut tucked around the corner was a bit of a shock as was the camel standing calmly in its parking space between Giles' old citron and the battered school bus they had escaped Sunnydale on. The sign swinging over its head read 'Motor Pool'. The strangest thing of all was the building shaped like a mountain with the rounded tunnel entrance with the sign reading 'OtherWorld Weirdness'.

Turning her head to look over her shoulder, Dawn was not surprised at all to see the Magic Box standing there in all its glory.

Reaching up to rub her temple, Dawn sighed. She wasn't certain, but she thought she finally figured out just where she had ended up. The clues were there if you knew what to look for. The hyena, the soldier guarding a military base that was made up of Sunnydale, Morocco, Egypt and other major and minor events in recent Slayer history all had one thing in common. Xander Harris had been at the center of them all.

Suddenly, the urge to be at the location that had been teasing at the edge of her consciousness this whole time became overwhelming. The gentle tugging had become a strong pull and she knew that she needed to be there.

Now.

A slight wave of vertigo washed over her briefly, almost as if she had tripped. Stumbling, Dawn quickly caught her balance and frowned. She hadn't even been walking.

Then she heard it, a crackling sizzling sound coming from behind her. Spinning around, Dawn finally saw what it was she had been searching for. It was a large blue ball of energy that was covered with sparking electricity. She could easily feel the raw power being generated by the ball. It was slightly taller than her and she could almost see vague impressions of people forming, dissolving and reforming again within its depths.

There was no doubt in her mind now. She knew where she was and what she had to do. She had somehow been absorbed into Xander, but she wasn't an Immortal so it wasn't a natural process. She was still Dawn, still the Key. And this ball of electricity was Xander's Quickening, the force which made him an Immortal.

It was both beautiful and terrible to behold. This was the very essence that allowed Xander to resurrect after death. This is what evil Immortals craved to steal, what frightened vampires away from his blood and what attracted high level demons looking for a mate. This seemingly innocent blue energy could raise the dead, and steal the souls of others of like kind.

And it was the core of who and what Xander Harris was.

How could she feel anything but love and trust when confronted with such a thing? Xander who was her favorite babysitter when she was a child. Xander who was her first real crush when she became a real girl thanks to a mystic spell. Xander who fought at her sister's side against evil demons and cruel men playing God on the old Council. Xander who roamed through war torn third world nations in search of Slayers to train. Xander who held her so gently as she died in his arms.

With a gentle and loving smile on her face, Dawn walked purposefully into the blue ball of sizzling energy until she stood directly in the center, threw her arms wide and let her oldest friends' Quickening meld and merge with the mystical energy of the Key.

When they had first learned the true nature of Xander's Immortality she had been frustrated that he couldn't find the words to describe what it felt like to take a Quickening into himself. Now she knew. Even with all the words of the many human and demonic languages that she had at her command, she would never be able to accurately explain the agonizing ecstasy that roared through her in a primal, almost sexual way. It was like being born and dieing all in the same instant.

The sizzling electric Quickening that surrounded her like a corona burned bright white briefly and then melted into a deep vibrant green. In that instant Dawn became Xander, his memories were hers to own, his thoughts were hers to think, and his life was hers to live. Then their Key influenced Quickening pulsed sharply and sent a huge surge of power rushing out into their shared mind and body.

The part of them that was the Key flooded their mind only to find many areas dormant and waiting. The Key woke those areas and infused them with new life, giving true sentience and awareness.

They smiled when the chaos born remnant of Captain James Ellison awoke from his catatonia. They watched with grim resolve as the primal hyena alpha awoke from her long sleep. They were amused and intrigued when the Swim-Team Monster drifted out of hibernation and the deepest portion of his mental lake. They felt deep concern as the horde of earth magic tainted with blackest hate shifted uneasily and settled deep into their bones. They were mildly startled to see the last remnant of Dracula's thrall turn and run from them, a voiceless cry of suffering on his lips. They marveled as the First Slayer walked out of her rocky cave wearing the face of every Slayer they had ever known, the transparent ghosts of a sage and a witch at her back.

The part of them that was the Quickening flooded their body and integrated many of the things now found in their mind by making slight changes and minor corrections. Body and the mind forged into one being. Several hormone levels were lowered, while others were raised. DNA was lightly modified. Certain abilities were enhanced. Earth magic was incorporated into their very being and used to alter the natural rhythms and cycles of their physical body. Piece by piece and bit by bit they were reformed into a new and utterly unique life-form.

All too soon, the surge of power depleted itself and their intimate connection began to fade away. They were no longer a singular being, but once more simply Dawn and Xander. She watched wistfully as the corona of energy went from bright green to shimmering teal to clear crisp blue. Once the change was complete, Dawn calmly stepped out of Xander's Quickening and back into his mental landscape.

Once she was free of the energy ball, she turned to look back at it and contemplate what they had just done. Dawn was still the Key, but her body was dead so she had somehow followed her instincts to bond herself to the nearest living person that she could trust not to abuse her. Xander. The only issue being that Xander wasn't human. He was, is and always will be an Immortal.

Dawn now realized just why the monks had made her to be the Key. The Key could be joined with a soul. The soul absorbed the Key and became one with it, the physical body or shell being immaterial to its needs. Xander's Quickening, on the other hand could only absorb other Immortal Quickenings and nothing else.

That was why the hyena was still here and yet still separate. That was why the shard of Captain Ellison's soul was granted sentience by the Key. That was why the Slayer Spirit was alive within the body of a male for the first time in history. That was why all of the shades and remnants of every mystical possession or encounter that Xander had ever had was a living reality within his very mind.

That was why Xander could hold the Key within him while not becoming the Key itself.

That was why Dawn was still the Key.

With a small sigh, Dawn turned back away from the crackling ball of energy which defined Xander Harris and began to walk once more through his mindscape. Now that she had touched his Quickening, she felt confident of what was out there in this strange world that was her friend's psyche. Plus she now knew the secret of traveling through it.

While it wasn't Heaven, Dawn supposed that it would be an interesting place to spend eternity. The population wasn't very high, but those that were here could prove to be fun distractions. A naughty smirk crossed her lips. Especially that handsome Captain Ellison.

She was contemplating going back to properly introduce herself to him when the most amazing thing happened.

Xander woke up.

Dawn watched with happiness as the stars in the night sky faded away and deepest black lightened to a bright windswept blue. Fluffy white clouds twisted into clever shapes and the breeze smelled like wildflowers.

A feeling of warmth and happiness swelled up inside and around her, but she knew without a doubt that the feelings weren't her own. They were all Xander's and they permeated his mind and influenced everything in this surreal little world. Dawn breathed in deeply and flung her arms wide to spin around under the bright sunshine.

Willow.

Xander was with Willow. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did.

She didn't even have time to try and figure out why Willow was with Xander or how she could even be aware of that fact when the world erupted into chaos. Thunder rumbled across the sky in an eerie echo of the earthquake that shook the ground she stood on. In an instant, the clouds opened up and a deluge of water rained from the sky, chill wind whipping at her long hair. Pain, grief and loss slammed her to her knees and she gasped for desperately needed breath.

"DAWN!"

Xander's voice shook the world, despair echoing from all corners of his mindscape. All around her, the fragments and ghosts that the Key had just awoken wailed in response, screaming their own fury to the sky.

Suddenly, Dawn understood that Xander was reliving the memory of the mugging gone wrong. He was seeing her die over and over again as he tortured himself with what had happened. Tears filled her own eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she finally began to grieve, both for her own lost life and for the dear friend whose brain she found herself stuck inside.

"I'm here! Xander, I'm not gone!" She raised her own voice, but the words were whipped away by the fierce wind. She was almost positive that he didn't hear her.

"Xander! I'm here!" She pounded a fist on the ground in the hopes that he would somehow feel it. "Inside this crazy place you call a mind! I'm here!"

The ground stopped shaking and the rain began to ease, if not stop. Dawn wasn't sure if it was because Xander heard her or if it was because the initial shock had worn off. The pain and grief that Xander was feeling still swamped his mindscape like a heavy weight that wanted to press everything down. She tried to project comfort and love, but she was just a tiny part of the environment and truthfully, she didn't even feel as if she was connected to it in the same way that the others were. It was as if she was her own separate entity in this land that was peopled with multiple reflections of different aspects of Xander.

Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet and looked around. The glowing staticy ball of blue energy that was Xander's Quickening was still there, sending out a steady stream of energy and life-force despite the emotional storm raking the land. While she could no longer see all corners of the mindscape the way she could when she had merged with the Quickening, she knew that there was no place untouched by Xander's grief.

Still, it would be best to get under cover. Dawn didn't think that she could be hurt or get ill here, but she didn't want to take the chance that she was wrong. Until she knew more, it was best to be safe and cautious.

Focusing her mind and power the best that she could while standing in the heart of a hurricane, Dawn transported herself to the one place that she had seen solid shelter. In the blink of an eye, she was standing back at Xander's mental military base. She was just about to dash into the building that resembled the Council Headquarters when she heard the chilling sound of a large gun being cocked behind her head.

"Halt!"

Swallowing hard, Dawn slowly raised her hands and held still.

"Turn around and identify yourself."

Telling herself firmly that Xander wouldn't hurt her, even if she was a glowing green ghost person stuck inside his head, Dawn slowly turned around. She found herself staring into the bright blue eyes of the formerly catatonic soldier, Ellison. As she looked up at him, she watched as his face shifted from angry suspicion to confused shock.

"Dawn?"

She nodded slowly and smiled. "Yeah. It's me. I'm Dawn."

"I know you…" his voice was a confused whisper. "How do I know you?"

Her eyes were sad as she smiled at him. "I think it's because of Xander. You know me because you are…a part of Xander's mind. From Halloween."

The soldier nodded and his gun slowly lowered as he stared at her. His face was mostly blank, but his eyes were distant.

"Yeah," he wasn't really speaking to her, but to himself. "I remember. I suddenly found myself in some small California town. There was a red-haired ghost and a noble woman in a big satin gown."

His eyes shifted somehow and she was certain that he was focused completely on her once again.

"And monsters. I remember lots of monsters. It was a crazy night…long ago."

She nodded once more. "Yes. It was. You were there that night because a chaos mage cast a spell that turned people into their costumes."

"And Xander dressed up as me. In a set of my old fatigues." He flipped the safety on his gun and slung it over his shoulder before looking at her again. "I remember his life. Xander's I mean. Only it's fuzzy, like I dreamed it instead of living it. And you were there…only less green."

Dawn snorted in wry amusement and held out her hands to look at them again. Her skin seemed to be normal except that she radiated a bright green light, so it was difficult to tell.

"The green is…a new thing."

The soldier nodded in agreement before going still, his eyes widening as he looked over at her in shock.

"You died."

She paused before drawing in a breath and sighing.

"Yeah, I did." She tapped her chest. "Gunshot wound."

"How…?"

She looked over at him for a moment, weighing her options carefully. She thought about Xander's life and all of the flotsam and jetsam that had most likely been collected in his memories, just waiting to pop out of some corner. Vampires, demons, foreign soldiers, slayers, mages, immortals, monsters and old lovers. She didn't know if those memories could even touch her, let alone hurt her. The Key had woken up a lot of those things though, given them a semblance of life just as it had to Ellison.

The thing was; the Ellison before her was the same spirit who had risked his own life to defend Willow and Buffy from those monsters, both real and magicked into being on that fateful Halloween. He was based off of the personality and memories of a real person, one who was a soldier in the US Army, one who had already proven himself to her, even if it was years ago in real time.

"Come on, Ellison." She gestured to the building across the compound. "Let's get in out of the storm and I'll tell you all about it. We'll see how much of your dream memories are real and I'll tell you what I think is happening now and what woke you up."

He seemed to study her for a moment and then he nodded sharply in agreement and they turned and dashed over to the building that looked so much like London Headquarters. It didn't take them long to reach the doors and then she was yanking them open and they stepped into the main reception hall and out of the rain.

Dawn looked around and blinked in confusion. The lobby and reception area looked odd to her eyes and it took a second or two to figure out why. It appeared the way it did several years ago; right after the Scoobies had arrived in England and took over the Council. The formal polished marble floor against the stark blue walls decorated only with a few scattered ancient weapons left an impression of being chilly no matter what the temperature. The gleaming receptionist desk was very neat and no dust was in evidence. All of this was strange, yet not so bad if you didn't count what was sitting in the chair behind the desk.

A ghostly transparent image of Wilma Bennington sat at her desk with her slightly graying hair pulled up into a neat twist behind her head and wearing a smartly pressed dark suit that helped to minimize her slightly overweight and dumpy figure. What upset Dawn so much was that Wilma Bennington had died three years ago when a vampire followed her from Council Headquarters after she had left for home.

Ghost Wilma looked up when they walked in, but her attention was clearly focused about three feet to the left of them. She smiled a warm smile at thin air.

"Welcome back, Mr. Harris." Wilma's smile turned slightly mischievous. "I hear that your trip to Kenya was a bit hectic."

Ghost Wilma paused and smiled; her head tilted slightly in that way she used to have when she was listening to someone speak. Almost trembling, Dawn reached out a hand to her. "Wilma…?"

Dawn's hand passed right through the transparent image of her long gone co-worker. Wilma didn't even acknowledge that she was there.

Suddenly, Wilma tipped back her head and the reception area rang with silvery peals of laughter. Dawn smiled sadly at the ghost even as Wilma's laughter trailed off into giggles, her head shaking slightly.

Then Ghost Wilma looked up again and focused on an empty patch of air. "Don't tell anyone, Mr. Harris, but I made a batch of brownies last night and I have them hidden in the researchers' break room on the top shelf of the forth cabinet. They're in a square shaped tin."

"What is this? What's going on here?"

The sharp voice beside her startled her and Dawn turned her head to see Ellison staring in confusion at Ghost Wilma. She was amazed at how much more real he seemed compared to Wilma. He was solid, for one. His voice was also much louder and…immediate. She looked away from him and back to Wilma. She was laughing once more, a twinkle in her eyes.

"I…I'm not sure. I think that this is a…memory."

She gestured around the room.

"The reception hall hasn't looked like this for years. Wilma herself is long dead…and yet." Dawn shrugged. "I think that this place and everything in it is a construct of Xander's mind. His mental landscape, so to speak."

She reached out to touch Wilma and once again her hand went through her transparent form.

"I think that this is the memory that Xander used to build this room. He always did like Wilma best out of all of the receptionists and secretaries. Now we know why, she baked him brownies."

There was a long pause and then Ellison's voice spoke to her in strained tones. "Are we…?"

She glanced up at him as he trailed off. Worry was evident in his face.

"Solid?"

He looked at her with an unspoken fear in his eyes, but his hands were steady on his gun. Despite the worry and strain they were both feeling, he wasn't going to fall apart on her.

"Yeah. That. "

She shrugged uncertainly. She wasn't sure of all the rules for existing inside of Xander's mind even with the cheat sheet she had picked up from merging with his Quickening.

"I don't know." She frowned. "Let's find out."

Without warning, she reached out with her other hand and almost melted in relief when her hand smacked against his chest with a solid thump. They both paused a second and then grinned at each other. They were both real.

Or at least, as real as they could get.


	4. Chapter 3: Waking Up Changed

**VOICES IN MY HEAD**

_Chapter 3 – Waking Up Changed_

* * *

Wildflowers.

The scent of sweet warm wildflowers was the first thing his brain registered. With just a hint of salt-vanilla-musk underneath.

Willow.

With that well loved and often missed scent swirling through his mind, he realized that there was a soft warm weight pressed against the left side of his chest. Without conscious thought Xander wrapped his arm around his Willow-girl and curled into her warmth. Tilting his head down slightly, he buried his nose in the soft silk of her hair and breathed deep that wonderful Willow-scent.

For a long moment he just drifted in that in-between state of sleeping and waking, warm and comfortable and happy. Slowly his mind began to catalog other sensations. One of his fingers was being pinched slightly and there were lots of sounds pressing in on him. He could easily hear his own heartbeat as well as Willow's and he could hear both of them breathing. There was also a very loud electronic beeping sound clamoring for attention. It was very annoying.

Once he had cataloged the sounds close to him, he instinctively stretched his hearing all throughout the building. Random voices talking, footsteps, heartbeats, lots of lungs breathing, the occasional bark of laughter or spate of giggles all filtered back to him. And someone somewhere was crying.

And of course, the very loud, very shrill beeping. It was driving him nuts.

He tried to tune out all of the noise and concentrate only on the wonderful Willow scent swirling in his nose. Hopefully that would allow him to sink back down into that warm, fuzzy, sleepy state he had been enjoying.

It didn't work. Xander wasn't sure where he was or why he was here and that fact nagged at him. It also occurred to him that Willow and he shouldn't even be on the same continent, let alone in the same bed. She was down in South America again, wasn't she? And he was in Pakistan. Right?

No, wait. He had left Pakistan on an airplane bound for London.

Memory rushed through his mind in that perfect recall that all Immortals shared. Panic flared seconds after and he tried to sit straight up in bed even while wrapped around Willow.

"Dawn!"

He struggled to untangle himself from blankets and a warm clinging Willow, unsure of where he was, but determined to find the beautiful young woman who so fascinated him. She was hurt, shot… He cut off that train of thought.

Willow was awake and crying, trying to get him to lie down, a constant litany of 'shhh' and 'I know' and 'I'm sorry' on her lips. Xander pulled the small cuff off of his finger and the steady beeping which had been picking up speed along with his heartbeat cut off. A long endless flat tone replaced it, and still he struggled, both to leave the bed and to figure out where he was.

"Dawn! Willow, I have to find Dawn."

Willow stilled with a gasp and he looked down at her and watched her lovely green eyes fill with tears and sadness. She shook her head slowly for a long moment and then leaned forward and wrapped surprisingly strong arms around his neck and sobbed into his chest.

"I'm so sorry, Xander. So sorry."

An image of Dawn's body lying in a puddle of her own blood rose up in his mind, her face lax and her chest still. Horror and grief clawed its way from his brain down his spinal column until his whole body was shaking. He was gripping Willow in his arms so tightly he knew that he'd leave bruises.

"No, no, no, no, no." His voice was a harsh whisper of denial.

"I'm sorry. By the time the rescue crew got there it was t-too late."

Willow continued to sob into his chest while he shuddered and shook; his own tears silent as they rolled down his cheek to be lost in her soft sweet smelling hair.

Xander was vaguely aware of footsteps running in and someone fiddling with that blasted machine making the horrible noise. He was grateful when it stopped and the person left, but that was only on the very edge of his awareness. Instead he was immersed in his memories of Dawn, particularly the last ones as in his mind he watched her die over and over again. And each time, he saw another way he could have prevented it from happening if he had only done something different.

He registered the sound of more footsteps coming and he ignored them at first, but something inside of him recognized the cadence and he looked up. There in the doorway stood Buffy and Giles.

Giles looked old and worn out; as if he'd been hunched over a pile of dusty books for far too long in another desperate bid to stop the apocalypse. Stress and grief were taking its toll on him and it showed.

Buffy was a wreck. Her eyes were red and swollen and her nose looked raw. Lines of grief were beginning to make their mark on her face and she was far too thin. Xander doubted that she'd enjoyed a single night's sleep or had a decent meal since Dawn… He cut that thought off. His heart broke all over again, this time for her.

"God. Buffy, I…"

He didn't have time to even finish that thought, because she dashed from the open doorway and across the room at Slayer speed. For half a second he thought she was going to murder him for getting her sister killed and he would let her, too. Then there was no more time for thinking because Buffy was there, climbing up onto the bed on his right and wrapping her arms around both him and Willow, her head tucked on his shoulder and pressed against his neck.

Then both of the women were sobbing against him, all of them shaking and crying in their shared grief. He watched as Giles shuffled further into what he now recognized as a room in the infirmary of the Council Headquarters. His father-figure reached out and rested his hand on Xander's head and slid it down his skull, across his shoulder to the arm holding Willow. He squeezed once and let go.

"I'm glad to see you are finally beginning to recover, my boy."

Xander gave him a look that was a mix of confusion and disbelief.

"Um…still have my head, Giles. I was never in any danger from that kid. He was armed with gun."

His voice was scratchy and raw. Giles poured him a glass of water from a carafe on the side table and held it up for him to sip from.

At his words, Buffy's breath hitched painfully and she squeezed him hard. He could feel the bruises from her grip rise up on his skin and then heal instantly, only to rise up once more in an endless cycle. He didn't complain, he just began to move the arm that was wrapped around her so that he could rub soothing circles into her back.

It was Willow who answered his implied question of 'what the hell are you talking about'. She lifted her head off of his chest and pierced him with green eyes swimming in tears.

"Xander… you've been in a coma for a little more than two weeks."

Coma? He hadn't thought that it was possible for an Immortal to be comatose due to the very nature of their Quickening. Xander glanced up at Giles and the older man nodded his head in confirmation. Xander looked back at Willow and squeezed both her and Buffy tighter for an instant. The very idea was surreal and he wondered in a disjointed and shocky way if that was why his vision was so wonky with all the strange shadows and sparkles of glowing light swirling around.

"It…it was strange and scary. Not like a regular coma, it was something…" Willow gave a little half shrug and a sob hiccupped out of her, "mystical."

"Pierson called in some favors," Giles' voice broke in and Xander turned his head again. "He and some friends from the Immortal branch of the Council scoured the Chronicles looking for some instance where this had happened before to another Immortal."

There was brief ominous pause.

"They couldn't find any." Giles cleared his throat and reached up to pull off his glasses. That was never a good sign. "We had some suspicions, however."

"They asked me to check, Xander." Willow's voice broke in earnestly. "We knew it wasn't something medical. We thought maybe it was magic. Possibly a misfired spell? I mean, D-Dawn was a fairly competent witch with a long list of spells at her disposal. But what if sh-she was sh-shot while casting? That could have been bad, right?"

That made a lot of sense, but Xander knew that wasn't what happened. He opened his mouth to say so but was cut off by Buffy.

"It was Dawn. Or, the Key, I guess." Her voice wobbled slightly, but she lifted her head from its spot on his shoulder and gazed at him with grief-stricken eyes. "We never really thought about what it meant for Dawn to be the Key. I guess I just assumed that when Dawn…died…that the Key would separate from her and go back to its original glowy energy cloud state and drift off into the cosmos."

"I've done a little research on my own over the years." Giles' glasses had been firmly polished and he was replacing them on his face. "Not much, I'm afraid. Things have been rather hectic and I've always been too busy. Most of what we do know is from the research Dawn herself has done."

Giles sighed and rubbed at his forehead with one hand, obviously trying to ease a tension headache away.

"I've been going through her notes and studying what she's found out about the nature of the Key itself as well as the spell used to force the Key into a living form. Dawn believed that the Key needed to be anchored inside of her somehow and that once that anchor was gone, the Key would dissipate."

Xander frowned as he considered all that he had heard. Dawn was dead so the Key should have gone back to floating aimlessly through the universe. Instead, it did something to him that slammed him into a two week coma. So that meant that…

"No. No, no, no and a side order of NO."

"Xander…" Willow's voice was conciliatory and Buffy just rested her head back on his shoulder and squeezed him again.

"I'm sorry, my boy." There was real grief and regret echoing in Giles' voice. "About five days ago you began to glow a bright green. At the same time, Pierson reported that he could no longer feel the sense of your Immortality even though you continued to breathe and your heart still beat."

Willow's eyes filled with tears again and he pulled her back down for another hug. She clung to him, this time grieving for him instead of the girl they had both adored.

"I believe that whatever the monks did to the Key to allow it human form, it was permanent. If the Key were still capable of existing without a host, it would have done so at the instant of Dawn's death."

The two men shared a look full of worry and dark fears.

"Instead, it seems the Key entered into you and tried to bond with you much the way it did with Dawn."

"It didn't work." His voice was still a bit sore. "Did it?"

Silently, Willow shook her head against his chest even as Giles turned around, looking for something. Finally, he picked up a polished metal serving tray and walked back over to the bed they were cuddled on. He held it up in front of Xander.

"Look."

Xander swallowed hard and remembered that Giles said he had been glowing green before. His hands looked normal now, but maybe…

He looked at the tray and saw that it's highly polished surface was reflecting him lying crumpled in the bed, Willow huddled against one side of him and Buffy on the other. For a long moment he studied the wavery dim image and wondered what it was Giles wanted him to see. Then he looked up at his face and noticed that his patch was missing. And gasped.

Deep within his left eye socket was a burning green flame.

"By all the gods above and below, what the hell…?"

His reflection stared back at him with one dark brown eye and one glowing green eye-that-was-not.

"We think that the monk's spell was meant to bond the Key to a human, but for as much as Immortals look and think and even act human, they are not. At least, not on a mystical level."

Xander tore his gaze away from the tray and speared Giles with a look. "What does that all mean, though? And why didn't Dawn ever glow?"

Giles sighed and then frowned thoughtfully.

"My best guess is that when the Key was changed by the monks, they did so in such a way as to allow it to hide within Dawn. It had to be undetectable to Glory or the Knights of Byzantium. Because it was such an integral part of her, the Key manifested itself in very subtle ways; her astonishing gift with languages, her strong magic, the fact that she never once got ill."

"You are not a human, at least mystically speaking. The Key isn't being absorbed into you the same way it did with Dawn and so it is manifesting itself much differently." Giles made a helpless gesture. "If you had been purely human we might never have known."

Finally Xander turned his head away and closed his eyes. It was too much too fast. Two weeks of his life were missing, he had a small green candle-flame burning away inside his formerly empty left eye socket and Dawn was dead. He just couldn't deal with everything all at once, so he pushed everything out of his mind and just clung to Willow and Buffy.

* * *

Xander had been awake from his coma for three days now and he was slowly going crazy.

At first, he had thought that the weirdness was just a left over from said coma and that it would slowly fade away as he got better. For several days he suffered from his senses going nuts; sounds getting loud enough to split his head, hallucinations dancing before his eyes, smells from across the Council headquarters assaulting his nose, foods he normally loved either tasting flat and stale or sending his taste buds through the roof with pain.

Adam Pierson was the one who gave him the clue to the weirdness, even if by accident. The other Immortal had met and heard of other people with very sharp heightened senses and he had suggested meditation to ease the overload Xander was feeling. While he didn't know any techniques that were specific to calm his hearing and sense of smell, he knew several techniques that were designed for Immortals. Supposedly it allowed them to manipulate their own Quickening.

Desperate for relief from his suddenly hostile environment, Xander decided to give it a try. Willow was a big help with his preparations. Together they had cleared out a small cozy room on the third floor and set it up for Xander to try Adam's meditation idea. A small braided rug was placed on the floor for him to sit on and in front of it were several naturally scented candles. Buffy's portable CD player had been borrowed and Adam had loaned him a CD filled with the sounds of the ocean and whale song. It would never be a big party hit and you couldn't dance to it, but it was sorta relaxing.

It had taken Xander several separate tries because he had never been the type who could sit still for any length of time unless there was a movie playing in front of him. Finally, a little over a week after he had awakened from his coma; Xander had managed to sink into a proper meditative state. And what he discovered while in that trance had rocked and amazed him.

_**flashback to earlier that day**_

Xander shifted slightly and felt one last knotted muscle in his lower back finally loosen up and unrealized tension bled out of him. That was the final hurdle and suddenly the scent of the candles faded and the soft trilling of whales in the ocean slid into the background. He felt light as a feather and as insubstantial as mist even as his mind floated inward and down.

The sensation was almost like traveling through the barrier between sky and lake and becoming the water's ripples. Light bent, sound was distorted and his skin felt cool and slick as reality wavered in and out around him. He considered being afraid or upset, but he was feeling far too peaceful to even pretend concern.

Smiling, Xander slowly fell below the imaginary water line and was submerged in his own mind. He found himself to be flying over a land of soft rolling hills dotted with orchards and farms, forests and small stony peaks. Ahead in the distance was the ever shifting and sparkling blue of the ocean. He vaguely wondered where he was at and where he was going. Considering it for a brief moment, he realized that he could go anywhere he had ever been in life or in his dreams. It was all here in his head. Turn left into the higher hills and he'd hit the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, turn right and he'd be in the African Savannah. Behind him was the desert and beyond that was the Council Headquarters. But in front of him was home.

At long last he was going home.

Thought became deed and the next thing he knew he was standing in the Sunnydale High School Library. He took a brief moment to goggle at the fact that his subconscious considered the Hellmouth itself to be his home. Suddenly he noticed that he wasn't standing in a pile of burnt out rubble, but inside of a freshly dusted and polished Library with all of its books neatly filed on shelves in the stacks. Giles' office door was slightly open and the cage was locked shut. The lights were on, but the room was empty of everyone but him.

Smiling sadly in nostalgia, Xander walked around behind the counter and fiddled with Giles' pens and stamps. He double checked the lock on the cage and gazed in to see the stash of stakes and weapons that Principle Snyder never confiscated no matter how much he hated them all. Peeking into Giles' office, Xander let his eye slide across the messy desk with several large tomes open on top of it over to the sideboard with its electric kettle and tins full of proper British tea.

A lump formed in his throat as he realized that this small and slightly creepy library situated directly on top of the most dangerous dimensional portal in the last thousand years really was his true home. And he had missed it dearly.

A loud bang blasted through the room and Xander whipped his head around to look, only to stumble back into the doorframe in shock. Dawn Summers stood in the middle of the open library doors in all of her green glowing glory. With a low cry of mingled pain and happiness, she ran towards him and threw herself in his arms. He held onto her as if his very life depended on it as she cried.

Finally, Xander managed to pull himself together enough to slide partly out of her arms and wipe the tears from her face. Looking down at her wide smile and shining eyes, he felt the double edged sword of attraction and loss once more. She was so beautiful and loving. She was also very dead.

"Dawn…" his voice was a forced croak, "I don't understand. You're dead. How are you?... I mean…"

She nodded seriously and reached up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ears. "Yes. I am dead. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

She ignored his skeptical look and reacted to the pained tone of voice by hugging him again.

"Yes. I was shot and my body was killed. The Key, however, is eternal. It can't be killed, only destroyed. And no bullet, no matter how big is ever going to be enough to destroy the Key."

Xander didn't know if this was something to be relieved about or not. He sort of knew that the Key was still around and locked up inside of him. Did that mean he was hugging the Key and not Dawn? Somehow, that thought wasn't as comforting.

"See, the monks needed to anchor the Key inside of me to hide it away. Instead of tying it to my physical body, they tied it to my soul." Dawn shrugged and a hint of sadness tinged her eyes. "So…no heaven for me. The Key needs a physical host, but it's got this human soul attached to it, so when it went looking for a new body, I got dragged along for the ride."

And suddenly, Xander really did wish that he was hugging the Key and not Dawn. If anyone deserved to reach Heaven it was her. He was nearly overwhelmed by the wave of horror that washed over him.

"Oh god. Dawn…" He pulled her in for a rib cracking hug. "I am so sorry."

She hugged him back for a long moment and then pulled away with a slight shrug. "It's okay. Not your fault. And hey, it could be worse. I could have ended up stuck inside that kid's head instead of yours. At least you are a friend and know me and can totally get the weirdness which is me."

Xander pulled back and grabbed her by the shoulders so that he could make her look directly into his face. He gently squeezed her arms and made a promise, "As long as I have my head on my shoulders you are always welcome to live here in my mind. I will never try to force you out. I love and adore you Dawn. I have ever since I first met you."

She beamed a smile up at him that was like watching the sun come out after a long night of terror and vampires.

Reaching up, Dawn grabbed his own hands and gently led him over to the long research table in the center of the library. Turning her head, she waved to a big man with large muscles and wearing a dirty and faded camouflage army uniform. The large man shifted the hand made long bow in his hands so that it was riding along his back next to a neatly holstered submachine gun.

"Let me tell you all about my adventures of finding myself suddenly stuck in your brain, Xander. 'Cause I gotta tell you, you are one strange and warped person. Your head is populated with the most weird things and people." She gestured to the soldier that had stepped over to the table they were at. "Allow me to introduce Captain James J. Ellison, United States Army Rangers."

She smirked at him.

"You probably know him as Solider Guy. You dressed as him for the Halloween that Ethan Rayne turned everyone into their costume. Remember?"

Xander goggled. "That was you!?"

Captain Ellison snapped to attention and saluted. "Sir! Yes, Sir!"

Xander blinked at the big man for a long moment before turning a dazed expression on Dawn. "I think I need to sit down."

She frowned. "Xander, you are sitting down."

"Oh." He looked back over at Captain Ellison. "Good."

* * *

Slowly, Xander pulled himself up out of the meditative state he'd been in and opened his eye onto the real world. He was getting much better at slipping into and then out of his meditation. He was also able to stay under for a bit longer each time. This last time had been the fourth time in as many days.

It was oddly addictive and surreal to wander around in your own mind. It was both interesting and slightly scary how his brain sorted and cataloged his thoughts and memories. The differences in how his waking conscious mind preserved things and the way his subconscious mind did was often startling and confusing. The real prize though was the chance to see Dawn.

Dawn was inside his head.

Not just the Key, but his sweet passionate Dawn. Along with her were other beings as well. Before the Key, they had merely been shadows and fragments. Now they were real and sentient and living inside his head.

Once Xander touched them with his mind, it had formed some sort of mystical link and he could hear them and talk to them even when he was awake and not meditating. And they could hear him.

Dawn. She was still the Key, trapped inside his body. Her own continuing sentience was a gift to all around her. Every mystical being that had been trapped inside his head by his Quickening had been granted a form of self awareness thanks to her very presence.

Soldier Guy. Who was apparently the shade of Captain James Ellison, Army Ranger. The last living natural born Sentinel.

Hyena. Alpha queen bitch of the Savannah.

The First Slayer. She was followed by the ghostly image of Willow and Giles.

The Swim-Team Monster. His form was not the same as Cameron's had been, but he lived in a mental lake within Xander's mind.

The Quickening. Burning ball of universal energy that breathed life into them all.

They were all there in his head. Constantly aware of themselves, each other and most importantly, of Xander and the real world through which he traveled while awake. His thoughts and emotions effected their environment. His memories and experience provided them with the landscape in which they lived.

Also, their powers and abilities were slowly coming out in him. Changing him. Remaking him in their collective image. The burning green eye-that-was-not was just the beginning. More changes were coming and not all of them were human in nature. It was both frightening and exhilarating.

Almost reluctantly, Xander acknowledged that he would have to tell the others about his discovery. He hadn't so far. At first because he was afraid that he had merely fallen asleep and dreamed the entire encounter with Dawn and Captain Ellison. After the second meditation, he had kept quiet because he didn't want to hurt Buffy by claming to have Dawn in his head without proof. She was torn up inside with her grief as it was. His waking up from the mystical coma had relieved a lot of her pain, but the loss of Dawn was still a deep wound in her psyche.

However, he was going to need help. The meditations helped to ease his mental trauma over Dawn's death somewhat, but physically he was in worse shape. His senses were still out of control. He often found himself pulled into a fugue state by something he saw or smelled or heard. If was if the fascination factor was jacked up a thousand times and he just fell away from himself and got lost in whatever it was that grabbed his attention in the first place.

He was also still suffering from the strange visual hallucinations with glowing lights and swirling waves of sparkles. Willow and Giles were surrounded by the swirling sparkles and Buffy tended to glow. Well, so did all of the baby Slayers, but Buffy glowed the brightest. Now he was hearing the voices of his inner fan club all the time. Dawn's voice was the easiest to hear, but he could hear the others whenever they choose to speak to him.

On top of all of that, he was going to have even more changes and weirdness thrown at him. He just knew it. So, he had to try and explain to everyone. He just hoped that they believed him and didn't just lock him up for being crazy. Because honestly, if someone had told him the story he was about to tell, he'd be the first to suggest a straight-jacket.

Time to go face the music.


	5. Chapter 4: Adjustment Period

**VOICES IN MY HEAD**

_Chapter 4 – Adjustment Period_

* * *

Xander had briefly considered just pulling everyone aside and speaking to them individually. Less stress, more comfort. He was pretty good at the one-on-one thing. He finally decided against it since that way led to secrets and division of trust and eventual hurt feelings. In the end he simply called for a meeting of Buffy, Willow, Giles, Adam and Phin.

Before the meeting, he pulled Buffy aside and warned her in the softest of voices that he would be talking about the things he had figured out by using Adam's meditation techniques. At first she was confused, but then he spelled it out for her; the Key, Dawn and all the strange things he'd been experiencing since it seemed as if the Key and his Quickening didn't quite mesh. She had gone very pale and turned wounded eyes up at him, but had silently nodded her head in understanding. With a voice tight with grief she had thanked him for warning her.

Now he had to actually tell all of them and he didn't know how to start. Every word out of his mouth was going to hurt Buffy and he didn't want that. They weren't as close as they once were, but they had somehow managed to put the guilt and the trauma and the hurt feelings behind them and forge a new, if somewhat tentative relationship out of the ashes of the old one. What he wouldn't give to be able to just make everything all better for her. This was only going to make it worse. He could feel it in his gut.

"Thank you all for coming on such short notice." Five pairs of inquisitive, if tired eyes looked up at him. He could see his own grief and pain echoed in all of them. "I know that you are all very busy, but I felt that this was just too important to ignore."

Sparkling energy danced around Willow brightly, paler and less active swishes of colorful glitter swirled about Giles and Phin. Buffy glowed a deep burnished gold and Adam sizzled a deep crackling blue. Sucking in a breath, Xander closed his eye briefly to stave off the bout of vertigo that usually followed one of his visual hallucinations.

"I spoke with Adam some time last week about a few problems I've been having since my Quickening tried to absorb the Key. He suggested an ancient technique of meditation that is specific to Immortals. It involves being able to consciously touch, and ultimately have control over ones own Quickening."

He offered up a wry smirk to Giles, "While I doubt that I'll ever have enough control over my own mind for that, I was hoping to be able to at least partially suppress it or direct it or something."

Giles and Phin both opened their mouths to speak, but Giles managed to be the faster of the two.

"What did you hope to accomplish my developing such a talent?" He tilted his head slightly as he stared at Xander like an interesting specimen to be studied. "Was it your belief that you could use this technique to contain the…." He trailed off uncertainly.

"The wacky hallucinations and weird sensory spikes?" Xander's tone was dry, "Or did you mean the craziness of having strange voices speaking inside of my brain?"

"Xander. No one believes that you are crazy or that you are going crazy."

Phin blushed, Buffy and Willow exchanged silent glances and Adam merely seemed concerned. Giles sounded sincere although he was looking a touch guilty.

"I meant, of course, the odd spikes in your hearing and sense of smell. As well as the strange lights you are able to see."

"Ah." Xander didn't belabor the point. He didn't have to.

"Well, you're right. I was hoping that I could meditate those things away. Or at least control them somewhat."

He paused and looked down at the table, fiddled with the pen in front of him, twirling it through his fingers. Finally, he looked back up and turned his head to face Buffy.

"At first it was difficult to relax enough to slip into the right state of mind, but I finally managed it. I took my conscious waking mind deep down into my subconscious and dreaming mind. I didn't manage to find the core of my Quickening because I found something else. Something even more important."

Buffy looked at him and saw the war in his eye between joy and remorse. Something profound had happened to him, that much was obvious.

"The Key. You found the Key."

Xander nodded at her.

Giles, Phin and Willow began a rapid fire of babble directed both at himself and each other as they got louder and louder in an effort to be heard. Adam merely leaned back and put one hand over his mouth, his eyes wide with surprise. Buffy was pale and still as she continued to stare into his face.

"There's more."

His words were whisper soft and directed specifically at Buffy, but it was enough to silence the rest of them.

"Dawn. Dawn is still the Key. The monks bound it to her and her to it. They can't be separated. Dawn is still the Key and she is inside of my mind. I talked to her when I was in the meditative trance."

Buffy gave a low soft moan of piercing grief and seemed to sway in her seat. Willow reached out instantly and grabbed hold of her hand. She turned to Xander, an angry glare on her face until she saw the soft smile of joy and relief on his lips. Then her glare slipped, slowly crumbling into an expression of bitter regret and deep sadness.

Giles pulled off his glasses and began to polish them furiously even as he and Willow shared a long and telling look between them. Adam stared at him, shock becoming guilt before he turned away. Phin stared resolutely down at his hands, his face a stoic mask even as he visibly bit his tongue.

Willow smiled gently at him, her large eyes welling with tears and her tone of voice a soothing and soft one. "Xander…. I don't want to upset you, but… Xander, Dawn is dead. Yes, the Key is inside of you, but…"

She thought that his grief over Dawn had finally made him snap. Xander looked around the table for support and realized that they all did. He knew that they had been worried over his mental state for a while anyway, and this just seemed to be the last straw. He was almost ready to agree with them.

Buffy was crying to herself while Willow hugged her. Giles began to speak softly to both Adam and Phin. The words were too quiet for Xander to hear it all, but a few phrases jumped out loud and clear. Things like; 'immediate psychiatric help', 'dangerous to wander loose', 'should have seen this breakdown coming' and most damning of all 'far too skilled at violence'.

Xander was on the verge of panic. If push came to shove, he didn't mind people believing he was crazy. He would prefer a reputation as being sane, but it wasn't that important in the end. Being locked up and defenseless in a cage was another matter entirely. And with this group of people, if they chose to lock someone up, then it would happen. He sat in a tense crouch on a leather covered chair at one end of the table listening as Giles, Adam and Phin argued over what they should do about him.

At that moment, he was half-way convinced that they were right and he really did need special care and handling. That didn't matter, however. He didn't try to argue, instead he began to make plans if it turned out he had to escape.

It was finally Dawn taking matters into her own hands that stopped the discussion of what to do with him until he could be rehabilitated back into some semblance of sanity. Her voice echoed round his head, as lovely as ever even though it was currently tinged with exasperation and mild anger.

_Brace yourself, Xander. I have an idea, but I don't know if it will work. I have to try though or they'll end up stuffing you into a straight jacket and spoon feeding you anti-psychotics for the rest of your life._

Then it happened.

It was an odd sensation to feel his awareness pushed back and shunted to the side. It was almost like physical movement although he stayed perfectly still. A tingle of energy poured over his body in a wash of heat and he felt his head glance down even though he didn't move it himself. He was shocked to see that his body suddenly looked like Dawn's, albeit a glowing green Dawn.

Then Dawn opened his mouth and spoke. "Stop!"

Everyone turned to look at the sound of the dead girl's voice. Then they realized just what it was they were staring at and their eyes popped wide open and their jaws dropped.

"D-D-Dawn?" Buffy stuttered, layers of pain and grief evident in her voice and face.

Dawn nodded Xander's head.

"Xander is not crazy. He's telling you the truth." She smiled at Buffy, her green image overlaid on Xander's face. "I am inside of him, Buffy. The Key tried to bond us to his Quickening as if it was a soul. It didn't work, but it did do something else."

Dawn turned Xander's head to face her old boss. "Adam, when you were first asked to work with us you refused until we agreed that you would never be placed in the field and made to actually confront the supernatural. Correct?"

His face a mask of shock, Adam merely nodded.

"At first we thought it was because you were afraid that a demon would take your head, but that wasn't it. It's because Immortals react weird to the Hellmouthy stuff, huh?"

He nodded again. "Yeah. Magic affects us differently. Demons react to us strangely too."

Dawn smirked slightly and waved Xander's green Dawn-like arm in a vague gesture at their shared body. "That's why you were a little freaked when you learned about Xander. Why you spent those months in Africa trying to convince him to take a research position and stay out of the field. 'Cause the supernatural tends to stick to Immortals instead of fading away like with regular humans."

"Yes, exactly."

Dawn nodded. "It's because the Quickening tries to absorb the mystical like it would another Immortal's Quickening. But it can't, so the strange just gets stuck lying around inside. Like mental dust bunnies under the bed."

Giles was polishing his glasses furiously. "Is that what you are, Dawn? A mental dust bunny?"

She shook Xander's head.

"No. The Key woke up everyone and everything that was rattling around in Xander's head. The voices he's said he heard are real. We exist. I exist." She shrugged Xander's shoulders. "I'm just inside of Xander's head instead of in my own body."

That's when Buffy leapt up out of her chair. For a moment, Xander sat trapped inside his own mind certain that she was going to slay him for being possessed. Instead, Buffy gave a low wailing cry of 'Dawn' and then slammed into him for a huge rib cracking hug. He could feel Dawn move his arms up to hold onto her shaking and crying sister, but it was muted and dulled to his senses.

Dawn cuddled Buffy for a moment and then looked over her head to stare at Giles.

"Xander's going to need a lot of help. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. The Key had other ideas and it changed him. We are inside of him, yes." She frowned. "Including the hyena from the zoo trip all of those years ago."

Dawn flicked Xander's eye to Willow and then back to Giles.

"I think Xander is a were now. A were-hyena."

Ignoring the multitude of questions being fired at them from Giles, Willow and Adam, Dawn leaned his head down onto Buffy's and hugged hard for a long moment.

"I have to go now. This is very tiring for myself and for Xander. I'll be back again later. Okay?"

Buffy squeezed them so hard that Xander's Quickening kicked in to heal the damage. She didn't argue, however. Instead she lifted her head and kissed Dawn on Xander's glowing green forehead.

"I love you Dawn."

"I love you too, Buffy."

Then Dawn faded back into Xander's mind and he felt his consciousness rush back into control of his body. The green tint faded from his skin and his own shape emerged slowly through the vision of Dawn's body until the illusion she had created was completely gone.

Buffy let go and leaned back, her watery eyes staring at him intently. He stared back in fascinated shock.

"Whoa. Wiggy."

Buffy nodded silently and then leaned in for another hug. This time it was his own thick muscled arms that wrapped around her too thin body.

* * *

He had finally moved out of the Council Headquarters and into the flat that Dawn had told him about. It only took as long as it did because both Buffy and Willow had been against it.

Buffy didn't want him to leave because she wanted to be near her sister even if being in Xander's presence really bothered her now. In fact, Buffy generally avoided him even as she habitually stalked him from the shadows as he moved through the hallways and rooms of the Council headquarters. He assumed that she was looking for evidence of her sister within him.

Willow, on the other hand, hovered over him franticly and mothered him half to death. Between the sensory spikes, the visual hallucinations and the fugue states he often slipped into, he couldn't really argue with her over his need for a keeper. He had finally reached the point where he didn't care about any of that. He simply needed to get away from her well meaning smothering and unintended pity. Willow didn't mean to make him feel like a dumb little kid that couldn't tie his own shoes, but she managed it anyway.

Then there was everyone else; all of the administrators, the baby-slayers, the researchers and the wiccans. Everyone knew that he wasn't crazy and that the voices in his head were real, although he had gotten a lot of odd looks by holding conversations with his mental houseguests. It was probably his own fault since he tended to speak to them out loud. That didn't stop them all from casting looks of pity, fear and plain old fashioned curiosity at him.

He hated that. Feeling like a side-show freak was not his favorite thing in the world.

Things were both better and worse now.

The flat was, as Dawn had warned him, kind of small. There was a combined kitchen and eating area, a living room with built-in bookcases, a cramped bathroom, a hallway closest and a bedroom with an oddly sloping ceiling that was tall on one side of the room and then began to sharply angle down halfway to the back of the room. It was also furnished with a small bed & dresser, a couch & comfy chair set in the living room and a small table and chair set in the eating area.

When the remainder of his things arrived, he was forced to do some creative arranging of items so that everything could fit. Truthfully, he was amazed that he had managed to collect so much stuff. Five years ago, everything he had owned except the clothes on his back had been lost in the Sunnydale crater. Then he had spent his time traveling. He would go someplace new, find a few things he liked and either keep it with him or ship it off to his rented storage garage. His possessions consisted of mostly books and weapons, but there were a few pictures, knick-knacks and such.

Moving out had other effects beyond getting him away from all the staring eyes. The visual hallucinations practically stopped. He only rarely saw glowing slayers or sparkly witches anymore. That was mostly since he had an easier time avoiding them, but still, it eased his mind a bit.

The sounds and scents surrounding him changed as well. In some ways this was a good thing and in others not so much. He was glad that the neighborhood that his flat was located in didn't have a whole lot of traffic, but the woman downstairs from him used way too much perfume. He sneezed every time she got too close to his sensitive nose.

To that end, he finally found an answer to his sensory spikes. Ellison, or Soldier Guy as Xander still sometimes called him, had 'fessed up to the heightened senses being his fault. Xander's weren't anywhere as strong as Ellison's had been when he was in his own body, but they were still much greater than normal human range.

His hearing and sense of smell were the strongest and Dawn believed that was due to the hyena in him. It was getting a little easier to deal with though. Partly because he was simply getting used to it, but also because he spent a great deal of time chatting with Ellison. The mental construct helped him to identify greatly exaggerated sounds and scents. He also sometimes managed to warn Xander when he was focusing too hard on one of his senses since that seemed to be the trigger into his fugue states.

Despite his efforts to come to terms with the changes wrought upon his body by the Key, time and events wait for no one. And hadn't the latest full moon been a three day experience of non-fun and terror?

No one had been sure if Xander actually was a were-hyena now, but Dawn's warning that he could be was large in a lot of peoples' minds. Specifically, Giles and Willow. The two of them had taken the precaution of building a cage strong enough to hold a were-beast inside of the basement storage area of the Council Headquarters. A small table and two chairs stood just outside of the cage so that someone could sit up with him during the event. There was a blanket on a rope that could be stretched across the front bars to protect his dignity while he striped off his clothes and they had even gone so far as to line the cage floor itself with straw.

After seeing the preparations and being reminded by Dawn about her suspicions, Xander couldn't refuse being locked up. He had a brief moment of wondering if they would let him out again since he was dangerous and crazy. Okay, that wasn't the official story, but Xander's heightened hearing picked up conversations that he wasn't meant to know about.

In the end, he bit the bullet and decided to trust his friends when they promised to let him out in the morning. Or just after moonrise if he didn't transform. Everyone looked skeptical over that last idea, but no one was willing to verbally rule it out just incase the fates were listening.

Willow, Buffy and Giles all volunteered to take turns sitting with him. Phin wanted to stay and watch so that he could take notes. Xander just wanted to be back as his flat and ordering a nice curry from the little take-out place on the corner. Instead, he stepped into the cage, waited until Willow slid the blanket across the front bars, striped off his clothing and passed it all back through the bars to her. He stood there looking out the high barred window and listened to her methodically fold each piece of clothing as he waited for the moon. All too soon it was peeking up over the buildings around them.

The transformations were painful and horrific while they happened. His Quickening tried to heal him even as the mystical energy tried to reform his body. The opposing forces made the whole process a very long and torturous one. By the time he had fully transformed, he was left laying on the straw panting and wheezing from the exertion.

During the event itself, Xander got to sit fully conscious and aware in the backseat of his mind and be dragged along for the ride. The raw steak and ham that Giles had fed him had tasted good, real good. It didn't change the fact that both he and his inner hyena would have preferred hunting down their own dinner, though. He didn't mention that since he didn't particularly want anyone to bring up the long forgotten Herbie the Mascot or Principal Flutie.

The next morning when he finally awoke from the transformation back into human form, he found himself confronted by all of his friends with pity etched on their faces. That really didn't help him at all since he was trying to deal with his own thoughts and emotions over being a were-hyena. When he mentioned a new found respect for Oz, Willow offered to track him down so that he could talk to Xander and help him work out any issues he might have. Xander refused since he had so many other issues to deal with, but agreed to hold the idea in reserve if he couldn't handle the were-hyena crap on his own.

As rough as the three nights of the full moon were, the days between were almost as bad. He had been exhausted despite his Immortal healing and his mood had deteriorated into something that Adam had referred to as Kronos-esque. Xander hadn't asked, but he had snarled wildly at a young Slayer when she called him a grumpy puppy. Fortunately, one uninterrupted night of sleep as a human after the full moon was over left him feeling a whole lot better and much more stable emotionally.

A chit-chat with Dawn during one of his now common meditations led to a fairly important discovery. His visual hallucinations weren't really hallucinations. Apparently, the glowing green eye-that-was-not could see magic and mystical energy. As it turns out, Dawn had always seen the world that way and didn't know any different. For Xander, on the other hand, it was new and strange and often disorienting in the extreme.

As soon as he realized why he was seeing those things, he had called the Council Headquarters and spoken with Giles about it. He had been amazed that no one had picked up the fact that Dawn could see magic, although he felt that explained why she picked up concepts and spells so quickly.

It wasn't too long after that when Willow had shown up at his flat. Giles had sent her to help him learn how to work with this new aspect of his vision by casting various low-powered spells. It took several sessions, but Dawn and Willow had both patiently worked with him to help him adjust to his new wonky vision. He was slowly learning to identify and recognize what it was he was seeing so that it didn't throw him off his game too badly by catching him off guard.

Although the first time he had sprouted gills and webbed feet during a bath had freaked him out to the point of needing to be sedated, he had quickly come to enjoy taking long soaks and going for intense swimming sessions. It soothed the deeply instinctive and non-human part of his psyche that was the Swim-Team Monster, but he worried excessively over the fact that he'd probably never be able to shower with another woman in his life without scaring her half out of her mind.

Dawn was distinctly unsympathetic about that thought.

Still, after three months in London he was in a much better state then he had started with. Since Dawn's death, the closest he'd been to violence was his sparing practices with Adam and the various slayers. He didn't patrol and he wasn't sent on any assignments. That razor-sharp edge of paranoia dulled a bit and the tension was slightly eased back on his spring-loaded reflexes.

In their merging, Dawn had seen all of his memories and many of them disturbed her greatly. Guilt prompted him to talk to her about them and to let her vent her own anger, fear and frustration over everything. He was mildly surprised to find that those bitch and rant sessions left him feeling better about everything as well.

All in all, he began to adjust. The were-hyena thing was only once a month and more annoying than anything else as long as he was caged. The gills and webbed feet in the shower was also fairly easy to adjust to and ignore. Even his wonky vision was fine now that he could understand what it was he was seeing.

The hardest thing overall was dealing with his heightened senses and trying to juggle multiple voices in his head.

Ellison was fairly quiet and normally only spoke if Xander started the conversation. Well, except when he thought Xander was being especially stupid or reckless, then he kicked in his two-cents worth of sarcasm. Not surprisingly, Dawn never shut up and if he got caught talking to himself, nine times out of ten he was actually talking to her.

The Swim-Team Monster didn't talk at all; he just sent Xander the occasional strong urge to go swimming. His big problem was the hyena and the Slayer, both of whom wanted to go out and hunt. Constantly. In a way, Xander understood their frustration. He sometimes missed the rush and thrill of taking down a few demons or a deserving evil Immortal. On the other hand, he was also enjoying his first real down-time since Sunnydale went the way of the dodo and he still suffered from the occasional fugue state.

Little by little and piece by piece, Xander was reconstructing himself and his life to include the new weirdness that the Key dumped on his head.

* * *

It was finally Adam that brought everything into focus and clarity. Despite the time and effort needed to understand and adapt to his new circumstance and abilities, the world itself moved on relentless. It was that which had been worrying the Immortal who was his self-appointed teacher.

So, he called a meeting.

Giles, Willow, Buffy, Adam, Phineas and himself made their way into the large and airy private conference room just off of Giles' office. Coffee and pastries were set up on the table and everyone sat down and fidgeted slightly. Once everyone had a pastry and was comfortable, Adam stood up.

"Thank you all for coming. This topic is something that I think could be very important. If not immediately, then most assuredly, eventually."

Giles, Willow and Phin all instantly had that intense researcher look on their faces. He and Buffy shared a brief look, but then a flash of pain washed over her tired eyes and she turned away to face the standing Immortal that had been her sister's boss and dear friend. Xander tried not to be hurt by it; he knew that she was still grieving deeply over Dawn's death.

Adam gestured to Xander, "While most of you have been working hard to identify what changes the Key made to Xander and help him adjust, I've been researching from the other end of things." His expression became both fierce and cold as he stared at Xander. "Above and beyond anything else you may or may not be; you are Immortal. That can't and won't change. You are still a part of the Game."

Every one of them drew in a deep breath in order to babble out loud their immediate thoughts as was the Scooby way, but Adam halted them in their tracks by holding up his hands and gesturing for silence.

"Even though all of you are aware of the basics, Xander and I have both survived the reality of a Challenge and taken Quickenings. We have lived what are only words to the rest of you."

"There can be only one." Xander's voice held tones of horror.

Adam's eyes were hazel lasers and he stared hard at Xander. "Exactly."

Willow huffed impatiently and made a vague gesture. "I don't understand what that has to do with anything. It's barbaric and I don't know why either of you play that…that…Game." She shook her head in disgust and made another gesture. "You could just…just, I don't know, quit. Say no more. I'm done. Caput."

Xander sighed and reached up to rub his temples. He loved and adored Willow, but even after everything that she had seen and done she was still a bit naive. And she was almost blind when it came to the darker parts of Xander's life.

"Wils…" He made a helpless gesture that could have meant nothing or everything. "The only way to avoid the Game is to retreat to Holy Ground." He grimaced. "I'm not ready to become a monk."

"But…"

Adam nodded and snorted in derision.

"The boy is right. There is no escaping the Game. Even if an Immortal lives a quiet life and tries to avoid it, the hunters will eventually find him." His gaze swept across the room catching everyone's eyes before they settled on Xander speculatively.

"And right now you are not only very vulnerable because you cannot control all of your abilities, you are also a rather unique and tempting target because of those same abilities."

Realization swiftly hit him in the chest and he gasped at the obvious.

"When, not if, but when word gets around about me, I'm going to be hunted."

"Yes."

It was a statement of fact.

His tone of voice prickled at something deep inside and Xander looked up at Adam, his expression half question and half challenge. The other Immortal caught the look and understood it. Adam merely rolled his eye and snorted.

"Don't be ridiculous, boy. I don't want your head or your Quickening."

The others shot odd looks between the two of them as if it had just occurred to them that there might be some strange sort of tension and stress building between Xander and Adam because of the Game. It was painfully obvious that Willow in particular had never even once considered that he and Adam might end up as opponents.

"As much as I adored Dawn, I do not want the Key inside of me in any way, shape or form." Adam shuddered at the thought. "Only slightly less repugnant is being a shapeshifter for the rest of eternity. No thank you."

Xander studied him for a moment longer and then nodded and sighed.

"I wish I could blame you or argue against that logic, but…"

Everyone looked away in sympathy. They knew just how hard this mess was for him.

"The point that we need to keep in mind first," Adam's soft voice broke through his brooding, "is that right at the moment, Xander is vulnerable to any headhunter that is patient."

Giles cleared his throat and nodded his head in understanding.

"The fugue states."

Adam nodded in agreement even as Buffy looked grim.

"But how do we stop them?" Xander looked from face to face hoping for an answer. "It's like I get lost inside some smell or sound or whatever. It fills me up and everything else slides away. Not even Dawn can knock me out of it."

Everyone exchanged looks of confusion until Buffy got this determined I-Am-The-Slayer look on her face.

"Then we get help." She banged her fist on the table. "Expert help. We find someone that knows about this sensitive stuff and have them teach Xander how to deal with it."

Giles and Phineas were nodding in agreement and Adam had a speculative look on his face.

Willow was the one that made the connection.

"Oh! Oh!" She bounced in her seat. "It's him!"

She turned to Xander and beamed. "Soldier Guy! He's the one that gave you the sensitive stuff. He should know how it all works. We just have to find him in the real world and ask."

Buffy nodded and stood up.

"It's a plan. You find this guy Willow and then you, me and Adam will take Xander to visit him and make him train Xander up right."

"Me?" Adam's voice was indignant.

"Yes, you." Buffy was implacable. "You're the one who announced yourself as Xander's Immortal teachery guy when we first realized what he was. Now your student needs you."

She softened slightly at the look on his face.

"It'll be okay. I know Xander is like the juiciest soup bone to any Immortal headhunters right now, but we'll all protect him. I'll deal with any demons. Wils can handle any rouge witches and if there are any headhunters you can…"

Buffy trailed off uncertainly.

Adam looked her directly in the eyes.

"Kill them?"

She wavered for a moment at the thought of killing a person that was so close to being human, but then Buffy straightened her spine and glared back at him.

"Yes."


	6. Chapter 5: The Sentinel

**VOICES IN MY HEAD**

_Chapter 5 – The Sentinel_

* * *

Methos shifted in his cramped airplane seat in a futile attempt at getting comfortable and watched as his student tried to charm the Slayer and fend off the Witch simultaneously. He was surprisingly adept at it which suggested he'd had lots of practice at it. If it wasn't for the circumstances it would have been cute.

Thinking of recent events, of course, left him questioning his sanity and wondering just why he stayed with this group of lunatics.

The easy answer was that it kept him away from Duncan MacLeod. The Scoobies, the potentials and the Slayers' branch of the Council weren't the only ones attacked by the First. Duncan MacLeod had also been targeted by a minion of the First known only as Arhiman. It wasn't until after he'd joined the rebuilt Slayer's Council that Methos had made the connections and realized that Duncan had been neutralized because he could have prevented much of the damage if he'd been in Sunnydale helping the Slayer.

Duncan still hadn't recovered emotionally from that horror so Methos walked softly around him and was giving him the space he needed.

His research into what happened to Duncan had just been wrapped up when Xander took an unexpected challenge in Tanzia. It was unexpected in the sense that no one, not even Xander, had realized that he was Immortal. When Rupert asked him to go to Xander and help him with the realities of being an Immortal, he had very nearly refused and dumped the boy in Amanda's lap. He didn't mainly because Amanda already had a student and Duncan would never forgive him for sending Amanda into danger.

So he'd caught the next flight out to the airport nearest to the newborn Immortal and spent the next few months in some of the most remote and war-torn parts of the world teaching the lad and trying, unsuccessfully, to get him to return to England.

Of course, meeting Xander in person had been a bit of a shock. The young Immortal wasn't at all like he'd been led to expect. The Slayer and the Witch in particular seemed to have a skewed idea of who and what Xander was.

Buffy had pulled him aside before he had left for Africa to warn him that Xander was brave as a bear but he didn't know the first thing about fighting. That Adam would have to stop him from throwing himself recklessly at opponents that would and could kill him. She strongly emphasized his need for training and his lack of self-preservation. She was particularly worried that the African slayers wouldn't be able to fight his challenges for him.

Willow also pulled him aside before he had left. Her warnings were only slightly different. She told him that Xander meant well, but he wasn't very book-smart so he tended to follow his heart instead. That Adam would have to be careful how he explained things so as not to confuse him. Also, she warned, he has a very odd sense of humor and it might seem that he isn't taking things seriously, but don't be offended because he doesn't mean anything by it.

Rupert pulled him aside as well, but that was more to warn him not to listen too closely to what the Slayer and the Witch might have told him about Xander. The Council's Head had said, "He's still the most stubborn and bull-headed person I know, but he's not the reckless teen or the dimwitted young boy that the girls have fixed in their minds either. Make your own decisions based on the man who you will meet once you arrive."

And that was the best advice of all.

No, Xander hadn't been what he had been expecting; which was a demon hunting version of Richie. There was a real hardness to Xander that Richie had only pretended to possess. Not that Richie hadn't had the potential to become dark and haunted, but Mac had made a lot of effort in restoring the boy's faith in humanity and preserving what innocence he'd retained. Xander obviously hadn't had that luxury.

Buffy was correct in that he was brave, but unlike her mental image of image of him, he could fight. And well at that. It wasn't in any one formal technique, but a mish-mash of various styles that evolved as he went through life. The intensive training that he had provided was absorbed quickly and helped to polish out a lot of the rough edges.

He interpreted Willow's comment about not being book-smart as to mean formally educated and that was true enough. Xander's schooling left a lot to be desired, but the man was not stupid and as for the joking goof-off that he'd be warned about, there was none of that in evidence. Instead he had found a man with a dark and morbid sense of humor complete with a lot of sarcasm spilling over to cover the fact that he was almost overly serious to the point of obsession.

Methos had liked him instantly.

He'd also attributed the girl's unreal ideas of who Xander was to the Cassandra effect. Bluntly put, they saw what they wanted to see by looking at him through a filter of the past. Cassandra looked at Methos and only saw the Horseman of Death; she didn't see the past two and a half thousand years of peaceful living, avoiding the game and becoming a doctor over and over again in an effort to redeem his acts of terror.

Buffy and Willow looked at Xander and saw the highschool boy who made dumb mistakes, was just learning how to fight, was confused by the complex world around him even as he was trying to find his place in it. Methos met the man that young boy had grown up to be.

So, he had spent several months following Xander across Africa, hunting down newly activated slayers, slipping past civil-war front lines, lending a helping hand in refugee camps, dusting vamps and of course, training with a sword and axe so that Xander could keep his head when challenged. He tried endlessly to convince Xander to leave the demon hunting business and concentrate on settling down and training for the Game. Needless to say, that didn't work and he had eventually returned to England alone.

But he had stayed with the Council in the guise of Adam Pierson, hiding his past from his new employers and co-workers easily. It was an interesting job and one that was fairly safe. It also kept him busy while he waited for Duncan to feel social again.

Now this.

He had helped Giles research the Key. He had helped Willow research James Ellison. He honestly believed that this would work as long as Ellison was willing to help out and didn't think that they were all nuts. He also had a real desire to help out Xander.

On the other hand, he really didn't want to be on this cramped airplane winging its way to Cascade Washington.

From what little he could tell, Cascade wasn't like its sister-city Seattle. Seattle had a fairly large demon population, particularly vampires. Cascade didn't. Instead, Cascade had been a haven to a few quiet Immortals with the occasional headhunter moving through it. Methos didn't want Xander taking a Quickening until he had a better handle on the changes made in him by the Key. Who knew what would happen if the amount of energy and power generated by a Quickening was poured through the boy before he was ready. On the other hand, he didn't want to end up taking anyone's head either.

His past was long and not too pretty. He could hide it easily enough until he ended up in a challenge and then his real personality, his true self so to speak, came through. Adam was a nice enough fellow; smart, concerned, gentle and inquisitive. Methos was a survivor that didn't believe in giving quarter to an enemy.

Xander, he was sure, had his suspicions, but the boy would never say anything unless he felt that the secret he could practically smell was a danger to his friends.

And despite their almost intentional blind-spot when it came to Xander, Buffy and Willow were very perceptive and intelligent warriors. If he wavered in his pretending to be Adam even once, they would pick up on that. Now that he knew them, he believed that they would forgive him his past, but he wasn't so sure about the fact that he lied in the first place.

The whole situation was enough to give him a headache and make him crave a beer.

Still, headache or not, he was here for the duration. Both Xander and Dawn were worth it and they were the ones that were truly suffering here. If he ended up fighting a challenge in order to protect them, then he would. Afterwards, when Buffy and Willow could no longer deny what it really meant to be an Immortal, he would do everything he could to keep them from locking Xander up in some tower all wrapped in cotton bunting.

Willow in particular would be difficult to deal with. She had the notion that the Game was just that: a sick and twisted game of one-upmanship. It wasn't a game; of course, it was only called that because there was a supposed prize at the end. It was a Game, in the same nature as the games at the Roman Coliseum had been; deadly contests of strength and skill where the loser died and the winner was rewarded with his life and possibly his freedom. It was an ancient and barbaric practice that Willow's modern sensibilities simply couldn't accept.

Thinking of Willow made Methos shift his attention back to the trio sitting in the row in front of him once again. Xander had finally convinced the red-haired witch that yes he could drink alcohol, no he didn't need a blanket or a nap, and yes he was fine despite the god-awful racket the creaking of the plane made to his sensitive ears.

Adam sighed with slight pity for the young Immortal. One of his wives had mothered him terribly and it had been an interesting and novel experience for a while. Then it had just gotten on his nerves and been insulting. He'd faked his death and left that wife fairly quickly.

Between the witch smothering him and the Slayer acting like she would break into tears if he shouted too loudly, Adam didn't know how Xander put up with it. No wonder the boy made sure to spend so much time away from Council Headquarters.

* * *

Methos stepped out of the cramped hotel bathroom only to see Xander sitting Indian-style on one of the beds meditating. Rubbing his short hair dry with a cheep cotton towel, he considered the young Immortal sitting so still and quiet.

Until recent events had proven otherwise, he hadn't believed that Xander could actually be still and calm for any length of time. His Quickening only seemed to amplify a natural hyperactive personality that was constantly being hit with large shots of adrenaline and fear. Xander was the kind of person who preferred to pace than to stand still or sit down and when forced to do the later would fidget and twitch the entire time.

And yet, here he was, perfectly calm and totally still while immersed in his own mind.

Methos knew that it was because he could contact Dawn, talk with her and get her opinions on what was going on. He also had some suspicions that he could chat with the other mental riff-raff that he'd collected over his years battling the supernatural, but he hadn't confronted him on that. He hadn't wanted to take the chance that Buffy or Willow would overhear. That would just lead to a huge, and probably loud, lecture on how dangerous it was and that Xander should know better than to risk himself. It would be easier just to talk to the young man when they were alone.

For now though, he wanted to review the material they had collected on James Ellison again. In the morning the four of them would head over to speak with them and Methos had a feeling that all the little revelations that they were going to drop on the guy were not going to be accepted with a smile.

Tossing his towel aside, he quickly pulled a pair of sweatpants out of his travel bag and stepped into them. Another moment and he yanked a faded Henley over his head and started digging for socks. It was cold here in Cascade and just as rainy as London. He thought it was a pity that Ellison didn't live in the Bahamas.

Pushing that irrelevant thought aside, Methos pulled out the folder of printed information that Willow had put together for him and opened it up. The top sheet had his current bio on it with all the pertinent information including a small photo.

Name: _James J. Ellison_

Address: _852 Prospect, Cascade, WA 98765_

Parents: _William and Mary (deceased) Ellison_

Siblings: _Stephen Ellison_

Job: _Cascade Police Detective; Major Crimes Department (several time winner of the 'Officer of the Year' Award)_

Willow also had a sheet listing the basics of many of the high-profile cases that he had worked on. His partner for the vast majority of these cases was one Blair Sandburg. Methos glanced over at the second folder, one that contained information on Detective Sandburg. Methos turned back to what he was reading; he'd review the other file in a minute.

The next section detailed Ellison's military experience. It was actually pretty impressive, at least what little Willow had been able to get. Most of the files were literally blacked out. Ellison had been in the Army Special Services doing covert-ops and as such his files were very hard to find without a lot of creative editing going on in them.

What they had been able to find was that he had been a member of an eight man Anti-Insurgents team that had gone down in a helicopter crash in Peru. He had been listed as Missing-In-Action for about eighteen months. When he was finally found, he complained of intense pain from extremely heightened senses. All five of them; hearing, vision, smell, taste and touch were recorded as being completely off the chart for human standards. Medicine didn't help and neither did therapy. Eventually, the Army offered him a medical discharge and Ellison went home to Washington State.

He laid low for a while recovering and then joined the Police Academy. Willow speculated that between leaving the Army and joining the Police, Ellison had somehow learned to control his senses or they somehow faded back to tolerable levels. Methos agreed.

Blair Sandburg coming into his life seems to be another turning point for Ellison. Methos had a few theories about that. Picking up Sandburg's file, Methos flipped it open and sorted through it.

Name: _Blair Sandburg PhD._

Address: _852 Prospect, Cascade, WA 98765_

Parents: _Naomi Sandburg_

Siblings: _N/A_

Job: _Cascade Police Detective / Profiler; Major Crimes Department_

The interesting thing about Sandburg is that he hadn't originally been a Police Officer when he first met Ellison. He had been a graduate student working towards his PhD. His original dissertation topic had been on Sentinels; beings whose senses are naturally heightened far beyond any other beings, human or animal. Apparently, he had been on the educational fast-track and many thought that he would be the youngest person to be awarded their Doctorate Degree at Rainer University.

Then he'd met Ellison and his dissertation stalled and never started again. From what he and Willow could piece together, Sandburg's apartment blew up and he moved in with Ellison. Then he got a ride-along pass with the Cascade P.D. and worked as an unpaid profiler while gathering information for his dissertation, which was listed with the Cascade P.D. as being about the Department as a modern day closed society. It wasn't until two years later that Sandburg had officially switched topics with Rainer University.

Then things got confusing. Blair had apparently, kept writing his original dissertation as well as the second one. The original, the one on Sentinels in general and Ellison in particular, got sent to a publisher instead of his dissertation review committee. Blair publicly denounced it and was kicked out of the PhD program and fired from his part-time teaching position. He immediately joined the Police Academy.

Apparently there were some legal problems with the city because of a bunch of loose threads, so Sandburg hired a top lawyer and got things straightened out by suing the publisher, the University and his own mother. It turns out that she was the one who sent his dissertation to the publisher without permission, only now he was calling it a rough draft of a possible work of fiction whose main character he modeled after Ellison. The publisher had published and promoted his unfinished book without permission or a contract. He claimed the University had fired him and removed him from the PhD program without just cause since they knew what his dissertation was supposed to be and he had yet to turn it into his review committee.

It had been, to all intents and purposes, a media circus and Sandburg came out smelling like a victimized rose instead of being labeled a fraud. He had then entered Washington State University's PhD program and defended his dissertation about closed societies and was awarded his Doctorial Degree.

Methos saw several possibilities when he read between the lines. Either Sandburg found out about Ellison's heightened senses and he agreed to help the student with his studies or Ellison lost control of his senses and sought out Sandburg when he heard about his area of expertise. Either way, Methos was fairly sure that partway through his dissertation, about two years into it to be exact, Sandburg decided it would be harmful to Ellison to publish it, even with a backwater University that no one ever heard of.

Willow had tried to get a copy of the dissertation, but all copies had been destroyed by Court Order and only Sandburg himself had the original. Reports stated that he might still edit it into a true fiction story, but Methos doubted that highly. And even if he did, Xander couldn't wait for a maybe that they'd still have to sift truth from fiction with.

Most important of all was the fact that these two men were dangerous. When he had pointed that out at the beginning of their trip, only Xander seemed to agree. He recognized Ellison as a highly trained warrior and a predator in his own right. He also saw Sandburg as a scarily intelligent man who knew how to manipulate events to favor him.

Buffy was a Slayer, one of the last ones called in the traditional fashion and as such she tended to use force and blunt strength when subtlety would be better. Her attitude of 'they'll help or else' wouldn't go over well with either man. In fact, Methos figured that was the totally wrong way to approach them. Human enemies were sometimes worse than demonic ones, and that was something that Buffy had never had to learn.

Willow was of the opposite extreme; she believed that if they were very honest and just explained the situation that they would be moved to help Xander. In spite of all that she had seen and done, Willow still had the innate belief in the goodness of people in general. Methos thought it was romantically old fashioned of her, but also naive to the point of willful stupidity.

Not that Methos didn't agree that honesty would be necessary; simply because if Ellison's hearing was anywhere as good as Xander's, he'd be able to spot a lie from twenty paces. It was after that point that Methos was worried about. Nobody reacted well to learning about the supernatural at first. Denial, fear and anger were normal.

If Ellison and Sandburg thought they were nuts, then it would be a legal battle of epic proportions to keep themselves out of an asylum or jail. If instead they actually believed them, then they had to worry about the two of them suffering some sort of existential crisis or diving head first into a bout of paranoia.

Hopefully things would go well, but he wanted to be prepared for it to get ugly.

With a sigh, Methos closed the two folders and slipped them back into his bag. He walked across the room and flopped down on his own bed when Xander shivered slightly and gasped deeply. Turning to face the younger Immortal, Methos carefully shifted his face into an expression worn by his alias Adam when he was being politely curious.

Xander opened his eye and smiled.

* * *

Methos sat at the small cafe table and despaired of ever making Buffy and Willow understand the warnings that he was trying to give them. What they were trying to do was unlike anything they had attempted before and it was with a type of person that they were not used to dealing with. He was going to give it one last attempt and then if they still didn't understand, he would focus on damage control.

"Look, just listen for a moment." Buffy's face was an expression of mule-headed stubbornness and Willow's was slightly condescending. "These men aren't what you think they are. They are fighters in a way that no slayer could be, because they don't face monsters, they face off against their fellow man and that is a totally different mind-set."

One of Buffy's eyebrows lifted slightly. He was sure she was trying to convey interest, but it came across as disdain.

"These men are highly trained Police Detectives," he raised one hand to stop the flow of chatter that he could see coming when they both opened their mouths, "and after listening to Dawn rant about her hometown I don't think either of you understands just what that means. From what I could gather, Sunnydale's government was corrupt from the top down. That means that any cops hired or trained there were chosen for the job for one of two reasons; easily corrupted themselves or gross incompetence."

He fixed them both with a sharp glance.

"You won't find either of that here. These men will be wary, observant and dangerous. One is a highly trained warrior and the other has proven to be able to manipulate both the laws and public perception to his will."

He pointed at Buffy, "Strong-arm tactics won't work here and will only put them on the defensive. A war with a Sentinel Guardian is not how I want to spend the next thirty years. No threats. Neither man will cave, but they will take them deadly seriously."

He pointed to Willow, "You are very used to being the smarted person in any room you step into. Blair Sandburg is at least as intelligent as you, if not more so. On top of that, he's probably a bit less naive when it comes to human nature. You tend to towards the black and white ideal of human-good, demon-bad. He knows better. Being condescending to him will be an insult that he won't let stand."

Both of the women looked shocked and hurt by his words, but he could only hope that because of that they would sink in.

"We are about to dump the true reality of the world into the laps of two of the most dangerous men on the planet. Personal revelation is always accompanied by fear, anger and denial. This could get very ugly, very quickly. Be polite, be understanding and please don't be threatening."

Buffy recovered from her shock first and a look of understanding slid over her face. Unfortunately, Methos' hopes were dashed as soon as she opened her mouth.

"Adam, you don't have to be afraid of these men. I won't let them hurt you if they get upset. I'm the Slayer. Plus, you know, Willow could always stop them with magic."

A look of disappointment flittered across his face before he could fix a mask of resignation in its place. "And what will you do when they put out an alert to every government on the planet warning about four armed and dangerous lunatics wandering about talking of fighting off vampires?"

"That won't happen." Willow's voice was earnest in her attempt to soothe him. "I won't let it."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and then turned a helpless look at Xander. Xander merely looked back at him with his face a blank mask and shrugged.

"Don't look at me, if I agree with you that will only make them argue against you harder. No matter what you say, they will always think they are right and that you are wrong. Even after the dust has settled and everyone has to pick up the mess from their mistakes."

Twin looks of indignant shock turned towards the young man, "Xander!"

Xander's look on the other hand turned smug, "See? I'm wrong again. Even though I can sit here and list specific examples until the sun sets without repeating myself once." He shrugged. "Let's just take it as fact that both of the girls will offend and insult these guys at least once and get this day over with."

"Xander!"

* * *

Methos swallowed half of his beer in one long pulled and then let out a tired sigh. He hated being proven right at times like these.

Neither Sandburg nor Ellison seemed to like or trust Buffy and Willow very much. Oh, it had started off okay. They had gone to the two Police Detective's apartment in downtown Cascade and knocked on the door. There had been a brief introduction period followed by a sincere plea for help. Then came the explanations of the 'real' world and how Xander had been affected by his contact with various magics. All mention of Dawn and the Key were left out.

Then, just as Methos had predicted, Sandburg and Ellison had freaked out. Sandburg was open to the idea that something weird had happened to Xander that might have woken up latent Sentinel abilities, but he baulked at the idea of that something being magic. Ellison was just catapulted into an extreme state of defensive paranoia. It was only the girls intervention that prevented the big cop from calling in backup to have them all arrested and held for psychiatric evaluation. Methos' smug smirk and muttered, "I told you so," probably didn't help any.

Finally, the only recourse left was to demonstrate the truth for the two skeptics. Buffy bent a metal tire-iron into a pretzel with her bare hands only for Willow to fix it with glowing sparkles of magic. He did his part by cutting the palm of his hand and letting it heal in a shower of blue sizzling energy. Then Xander capped the show by sliding into one of his fugue-states and freezing up like a statue.

Actually, that was probably the best thing that could have happened at that point. As much as is sucked for Xander, that was what was needed to get both Sandburg and Ellison from feeling incredibly blindsided and helpless in the face of the unknown and into a position of expertise and experience. By focusing on Xander and helping him come back from whatever la-la-land he'd drifted off to had allowed them to step back from the immediate fear and horror of magic and mystically super-strong women and strange men that lived forever hiding amongst the mortals. It was, after all, a hell of a lot to take in all at once. By the time that Xander was focused on what was going on instead of being stuck inside his own head, the two men had calmed down a whole lot.

That's when Xander took up the story. He explained how back when he was a teen, way before he had found out he was really an Immortal, he had dressed up for Halloween in a set of old Army fatigues that he had bought at a local Army-Navy Surplus store. He and Willow had then woven a horrifying story about a cruel mage that worshipped the forces of chaos enchanting costumes so that people would turn into whatever it was they were supposed to be. Xander had, for a single night, become Captain James Ellison; US Army Ranger. The chaos magic born spirit of Captain Ellison, trapped inside of the teenaged Xander, had run around Sunnydale protecting the 17th century noble-woman that Buffy had dressed as from all of the people who had been dressed as vampires, werewolves and pirates. They didn't mention that those things, baring the pirates, were actually real.

Buffy then took up the tale and spoke about how Xander and her sister Dawn had been attacked. She told that Dawn had died, but Xander's immortality had saved him. Only now, whatever had happened had woken up the strange abilities the possessing spirit of Captain Ellison had inadvertently left behind.

After that, Ellison had called out for some take-out and Sandburg had run Xander through a series of tests and examinations while simultaneously quizzing him about his experiences. It had taken a while and Willow had sat with them through the whole thing, alternately asking a question that sparked a great flood of information from Sandburg or getting in the way with her fussing and interruptions.

He and Buffy had sat further away with Ellison and tried to answer as many questions as they could without going into to much detail about vampires and demons and Immortals. They didn't lie, but they down played it a lot. Neither of them wanted the big cop to flip out once again and despite him clinging to calm acceptance with his fingertips, it wasn't hard to see that it wouldn't take much to upset him.

By the time the food had arrived, Sandburg had pronounced that Xander had the 'gift', although from the expression on Ellison's face one could easily see that he considered it closer to a curse than a gift. Still, whichever way you looked at it, Xander had it. According to Sandburg, he wasn't as talented as Ellison, especially in the areas of touch, taste or sight. His sense of smell and hearing, though, was another story all together. Those were so far off the chart that the chart might as well not even exist.

They had finally called it an evening as Xander was exhausted, everyone's nerves were shot and both Sandburg and Ellison had a hell of a lot of information to process. Plans were made to meet up the next night so that Sandburg could do some more tests and then teach Xander as many tricks for learning to control the sensory spikes he was suffering as possible.

And now, he sat in the darkened motel room drinking as many beers as he could down and watching Xander sleep. He sincerely hoped that the two cops could help the younger immortal control and deal with his heightened senses; not only because he was in constant danger from headhunters until he could prevent himself from slipping into those fugue states that Sandburg called 'Zone-Outs', but also because if the Slayer and the Witch didn't back off soon he was sure the boy would completely freak-out over their constant mothering and unintentional put-downs.

Unfortunately, he didn't know how to make them stop. 'Them' being either mystically heightened senses or mystically enhanced big-sisters, or both.


End file.
